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LONDON 



REV. C. H. DA VIES, D.D. 



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MYSTIC LONDON; 



OR, 



PHASES OF OCCULT LIFE IN THE 
BRITISH METROPOLIS. 



BY 

REV. CHARLES MAURICE DAVIES, D.D. 

AUTHOR OF 
"orthodox" and "unorthodox LONDON," ETC 



"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in thy philosophy." 

Hamlet. 



DEC 17 1884 



NEW YORK: 
JOHN W. LOYELL, G 

14 & 13 Vesey Street 







TROWS 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 

NEW YORK. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE. 

I. London Arabs i 

II. East London Arg,bs 9 

III. London Arabs in Canada 16 

IV. Waifs and Strays 23 

V. A Lunatic Ball 31 

VI. A Baby Show 41 

VII. A Night in a Bakehouse 47 

VIII. A London Slave Market 54 

IX. Tea and Experience 59 

X. Sunday Linnet-singing 69 

XI. A Woman's Rights Debate 74 

XII. An Open-Air Tichborne Meeting 8t 

XIII. Sunday in a People's Garden 88 

XIV. Utilizing the Young Ladies . 94 

XV. Fairlop Friday 99 

XVI. A Christmas Dip 105 

XVII. Boxing-day on the Streets 109 

XVIIL The Vigil of the Derby 114 

XIX. The Wifeslayer's "Home" 122 

XX. Bathing in the Far East 127 

XXI. Among the Quakers 132 

XXII. Penny Readings 139 

XXIII. Darwinism on the Devil 145 

XXIV Peculiar People .161 

XXV. Interviewing an Astrologer 165 

XXVL A Barmaid Show 172 

XXVII. A Private Execution 176 

XXVIII. Breaking up for the Holidays 182 



iv CONTENTS. 



XXIX. Psychological Ladies 185 

XXX. Secularism on Bunyan . , , i8q 

XXXI. Al Fresco Infidelity ......;... 196 

XXXII. An ''Indescribable Phenomenon" 203 

XXXIII. A Lady Mesmerist . 211 

XXXIV. A Psychopathic Institution 218 

XXXV. A Phrenological Evening 225 

XXXVI. A Spiritual Picnic 230 j 

XXXVII. A Ghostly Conference 235 f 

XXXVIII. An Evening's Diablerie 243 

XXXIX. Spiritual Athletes 249 

XL. " Spotting " Spirit Mediums 254 

XLI. A Seance for Skeptics 260 

XLII. An Evening with the Higher Spirits 266 

XLIII. Spirit Forms 276 

XLIV. Sitting with a Sibyl 282 

XLV. Spiritualists and Conjurers 288 

XLVI. Pros and Cons of Spiritualism 294 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



CHAPTER I. 

LONDON ARABS. 

OF all the protean forms of misery that meet us in 
the bosom of that "stony-hearted, stepmother, Lon- 
don," there is none that appeals so directly to our sym- 
pathies as the spectacle of a destitute child. In the 
case of the grown man or woman, sorrow and suffering 
are often traceable to the faults, or at best to the misfor- 
tunes of the sufferers themselves ; but in the case of 
the child they are mostly, if not always, vicarious. The 
fault, or desertion, or death of the natural protectors, 
turns loose .upon the desert of our streets those nomade 
hordes of Bedouins, male and female, whose presence 
is being made especially palpable just now, and whose 
reclamation is a perplexing, yet still a hopeful, problem. 
In the case of the adult Arab, there is a life's work to 
undo, and the facing of that fact it is which makes some 
of our bravest workers drop their hands in despair. 
With these young Arabs, on the contrary, it is only the 
wrong basis of a few early years to correct, leaving carte 
blanche for any amount of hope in youth, maturity, and 
old age. Being desirous of forming, for my own edifica- 
tion, some notion of the amount of the evil existing, 
and the efforts made to counteract it, I planned a pil- 



2 MYSTIC LONDON. 

grimage into this Arabia Infelix — this Petrasa of the 
London flagstones ; and purpose setting down here, in 
brief, a few of my experiences, for the information of 
stay-at-home travellers, and still more for the sake of 
pointing out to such as may be disposed to aid in the 
work of rescuing these little Arabs the proper channels 
for their beneficence. Selecting, then, the Seven Dials 
and Bethnal Green as the foci of my observation in 
West and East London respectively, I set out for the 
former one bleak March night, and by way of breaking 
ground, applied to the first police-constable I met on 
that undesirable beat for information as to my course. 
After one or two failures, I met with an officer literally 
" active and intelligent," who convoyed me through sev- 
eral of that network of streets surrounding the Seven 
Dials, leaving me to my own devices when he had given 
me the general bearings of the district it v»rould be de- 
sirable to visit. 

My first raid was on the Ragged School and Soup 
Kitchen in Charles Street, Drury Lane, an evil-looking 
and unfragrant locality ; but the institution in question 
stands so close to the main thoroughfare that the most 
fastidious may visit it with ease. Here I found some 
twenty Arabs assembled for evening school. They were 
of all ages, from seven to fifteen, and their clothing was 
in an inverse ratio to their diet — very little of the form- 
er, and a great deal of the latter. They moved about 
with their bare feet in the most feline way, like the veri- 
table Bedouin himself. There they were, however, over 
greasy slates and grimy copy-books, in process of civil- 
ization. The master informed me that his special dif- 
ficulties arose from the attractions of the theatre and the 
occasional intrusion of wild Arabs, who came only to 



LONDON ARABS. 3 

kick up a row. At eight o'clock the boys were to be 
regaled with a brass band practice, so, finding from one 
of the assembled Arabs that there was a second insti- 
tution of the kind in King Street, Long Acre, I passed 
on thereto. Here I was fortunate enough to find the 
presiding genius in the person of a young man engaged 
in business during the day, and devoting his extra time 
to the work of civilizing the barbarians of this district. 
Sunday and week-day services, night schools. Bands of 
Hope, temperance meetings, and last, not least, the soup 
kitchen, were the means at work here. Not a single 
officer is paid. The task is undertaken " all for love, 
and nothing for reward," and it has thriven so far that 
my presence interrupted a debate between the gentle- 
man above-mentioned and one of his coadjutors on the 
subject of taking larger premises. The expenses were 
met by the weekly offerings, and I was surprised to see 
by a notice posted in the room where the Sunday ser- 
vices are held, that the sum total for the past week was 
only iQi". 4^. So there must be considerable sacrifice 
of something more than time to carry on this admirable 
work. Under the guidance of the second gentleman 
mentioned alijove, I proceeded to the St. George's and 
St. Giles's Refuge in Great Queen Street, where boys 
are admitted on their own application, the only qualifica- 
tion being destitution. Here they are housed, clothed, 
boarded, and taught such trades as they may be fitted 
for, and not lost sight of until they are provided with 
situations. A hundred and fifty-four was the number 
of this truly miraculous draught from the great ocean 
of London streets, whom I saw all comfortably bedded 
in one spacious dormitory. Downstairs were the im- 
plements and products of the day's work, dozens of 



4 MYSTIC LONDON. 

miniature cobblers' appliances, machines for sawing and 
chopping firewood, &c., whilst, in a spacious refectory 
on the first floor, I was informed, the resident Arabs 
extended on a Friday their accustomed hospitality to 
other tribes, to such an extent that the party number- 
ed about 500. Besides the 154 who were fortunate 
enough to secure beds, there were twenty new arrivals, 
who had to be quartered on the floor for the night ; but 
at all events they had a roof above them, and were out 
of the cruel east wind that made Arabia Petraea that 
evening an undesirable resting-place indeed. Lights 
were put out, and doors closed, when I left, as this is 
not a night refuge ; but notices are posted, I am inform- 
ed, in the various casual wards and temporary refuges, 
directing boys to this. There is a kindred institution 
for girls in Broad Street. Such was my first experience 
of the western portion of Arabia Infelix. 

The following Sunday I visited the Mission Hall be- 
longing to Bloomsbury Chapel, in Moor Street, Soho, 
under the management of Mr. M'Cree, and the nature 
of the work is much the same as that pursued at King 
Street. The eleven o'clock service was on this partic- 
ular day devoted to children, who were assembled in 
large numbers, singing their cheerful hymns, and listen- 
ing to a brief, practical amd taking address. These 
children, however, were of a class above the Arab 
type, being generally well dressed. I passed on thence 
to what was. then Mr. Brock's chapel, where I found 
my veritable Arabs, whom I had seen in bed the pre- 
vious evening, arrayed in a decent suit of " sober liv- 
ery," and perched up in a gallery to gather what they 
could comprehend of Mr. Brock's discourse — not very 
much, I should guess ; for that gentleman's long Latin- 



LONDON ARABS. c 

ized words would certainly fire a long wa.y over their 
heads, high as was their position. I found the whole 
contingent of children provided for at the refuge was 
400, including those on board the training ship " Chi- 
chester," and the farm at Bisley, near Woking, Surrey. 
This is certainly the most complete way of dealing with 
the Arabs par excellence, as it contemplates the case 
of utter destitution and homelessness. It need scarce- 
ly be said, however, that such a work must enlarge its 
boundaries very much, in order to make any apprecia- 
ble impression on the vast amount of such destitution. 
Here, nevertheless, is the germ, and it is already fruc 
tifying most successfully. The other institutions^ deal- 
ing with larger masses of children, aim at civilizing 
them at home, and so making each home a centre of 
influence. 

Passing back again to the King Street Mission Hall, 
I found assembled there the band of fifty missionaries, 
male and female, who visit every Sunday afternoon the 
kitchens of. the various lodging-houses around the 
Seven Dials. Six hundred kitchens are thus visited 
every week. After roll-call, and a brief address, we 
sallied forth, I myself accompanying Mr. Hatton — the 
young man to whom the establishment of the mission is 
due — and another of his missionaries. I had heard 
much of the St. Giles's kitchens, but failed to realize 
any idea of the human beings swarming by dozens and 
scores in those subterranean regions. Had it not been 
for the fact that nearly every man was smoking, the at- 
mosphere would have been unbearable. In most of the 
kitchens they were beguiling the ennui of Sunday after- 
noon with cards ; but the game was invariably sus- 
pended on our arrival. Some few removed their hats 



6 MYSTIC LONDOiY. 

— for all wore them — and a smaller number still joined 
in a verse or two of a hymn, and listened to a portion 
of Scripture and a few words of exhortation. One or 
two seemed interested, others smiled sardonically ; the 
majority kept a dogged silence. Some read their 
papers and refused the tracts and publications offered 
them. These, I found, were the Catholics. I was as- 
sured there were many men there who themselves, or 
whose friends, had occupied high positions. I was 
much struck with the language of one crop-headed 
young fellow of seventeen or eighteen, who, seeing me 
grope my way, said, " They're not very lavish with the 
gas here, sir, are they 1 " It may appear that this " ex- 
perience " has but little bearing on the Arab boys ; but 
really some of the inmates of these kitchens were but 
boys. Those we visited were in the purlieus of the old 
" Rookery," and for these dens, I was informed, the 
men paid fourpence a night! Surely a little money in- 
vested in decent dwellings for these people would be 
well and even remuneratively spent. The kitchens, 
my informant — who has spent many years among them 
— added, are generally the turning point between hon- 
esty and crime. The discharged soldier or mechanic 
out of work is^ there herded with the professional thief 
or burglar, and learns his trade and gets to like his 
life. 

The succeeding evening I devoted first of all to the 
Girls' Refuge, 19 Broad Street, St. Giles's. Here were 
sixty-two girls of the same class as the boys in Great 
Queen street, who remain until provided with places as 
domestic servants. A similar number were in the 
Home at Ealing. The institution itself is the picture 
of neatness and order. I dropped in quite unexpect- 



LONDON ARABS. y 

edly, and any visitor who may be induced to follow my 
example will not fail to be struck with the happy, 
'* homely " look of everything, the clean, cheerful ap- 
pearance of the female Arabs, and the courtesy and 
kindness of the matron. These girls are considered to 
belong to St. Giles's parish, as the boys to Bloomsbury 
Chapel. So far the good work has been done by the 
Dissenters and Evangelical party in the Established 
Church. The sphere of the High Church — -as I was 
reminded by the Superintendent Sergeant — is the New- 
port Market Refuge and Industrial Schools. Here, be- 
sides the male and female refuges, is a Home for Des- 
titute Boys, who are housed and taught on the same 
plan as at St. Giles's. Their domicile is even more 
cosy than the other, and might almost tempt a boy to 
act the part of an " amateur Arab." I can only say 
the game that was going on, previously to bed, in the 
large covered play room, with bare feet and in shirt 
sleeves, was enough to provoke the envy of any 
member of a Dr. Blimber's " Establishment." The 
Institution- had just had a windfall in the shape of 
one of those agreeable ;^i,ooo cheques that have been 
flying about latel}^, or their resources would have been 
cramped ; but the managers are wisely sensible that 
such windfalls do not come every day, and so forbear 
enlarging their boundaries as they could wish. 

Strangely enough, the Roman Catholics, who usually 
outdo us in their work among the poor, seemed a little 
behindhand in this special department of settling the 
Arabs. They have schools largely attended in Tudor 
Place, Tottenham Court Road, White Lion Street, Seven 
Dials, &C.5 but, as far as I could ascertain, nothing lo- 
cal in the shape of a Refuge. To propagate the faith 



g MYSTIC LONDON. 

may be all very well, and will be only the natural im- 
pulse of a man sincere in his own belief j but we must 
not forget that these Arabs have bodies as well as souls, 
and that those bodies have been so shamefully debased 
and neglected as to drag the higher energies down with 
them ; and it is a great question whether it is not ab- 
solutely necessary to begin on the very lowest plane 
first, and so to work towards the higher. Through the 
body and the mind we may at least reach the highest 
sphere of all. 

Without for one moment wishing to write down the 
"religious" element, it is, I repeat, a grave question 
whether the premature introduction of that element 
does not sometimes act as a deterrent, and frustrate the 
good that might otherwise be done. Still there is the 
great fact, good is being done. It would be idle to 
carp at any means when the end is so thoroughly good. 
I could not help, as I passed from squalid kitchen to 
kitchen that Sunday afternoon, feeling Lear's words 
ring through my mind :— 

'* O, I have ta'en 
Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp, 
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, 
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, 
And show the heavens more just." 

And now " Eastward ho 1 " for " experiences " in 
Bethnal Green. 



EAST LONDON ARABS. 



CHAPTER II. 

EAST LONDON ARABS. 

IVrOTWITHSTANDING my previous experiences 
among the Western tribes of Bedouins whose lo- 
cale is the Desert of the Seven Dials, I must confess to 
considerable strangeness when first I penetrated the wil- 
derness of Bethnal Green. Not only was it utterly terra 
incognita to me, but, with their manifold features in 
common, the want and squalor of the East have traits 
distinct from those of the West. I had but the name 
of one Bethnal Green parish and of one lady — Miss 
Macpherson — and with these slender data I proceeded 
to my work, the results of which I again chronicle 
seriatim. 

Passing from the Moorgate Street Station I made 
for the Eas-tern Counties Terminus at Shoreditch, and 
soon after passing it struck off to my right in the Beth- 
nal Green Road. Here, amid a pervading atmosphere 
of bird-fanciers and vendors of live pets in general, I 
found a Mission Hall, belonging to I know not what 
denomination, and, aided by a vigorous policeman, 
kicked — in the absence of knocker or bell — at all the 
doors, without result. Nobody was there. I went on 
to the Bethnal Green parish which had been named to 
me as the resort of nomade tribes, and found the in- 
cumbent absent in the country for a week or so, and 
the Scripture-reader afraid, in his absence, to give much 
information. He ventured, however, to show me the 



10 MYSTIC LONDON. 

industrial school, where some forty children were em- 
ployed in making match-boxes for Messrs. Bryant and 
May. However, as I was told that the incumbent in 
question objected very decidedly to refuges and ragged 
schools, and thought it much better for the poor to 
strain a point and send their little ones to school, I felt 
that was hardly the regimen to suit my Arabian friends, 
who were evidently teeming in that locahty. I was 
even returning home with the view of getting further 
geographical particulars of this Eastern Arabia Petraea, 
when, as a last resource, I was directed to a refuge in 
Commercial Street. I rang here, and found myself in 
the presence of the veritable Miss Macpherson herself, 
with whom I passed two pleasant and instructive 
hours. 

At starting, Miss Macpherson rather objected to be- 
ing made the subject of an article — first of all, for the 
very comprehensible reason that such publicity would 
draw down upon her a host of visitors ; and when I 
suggested that visitors probably meant funds, she 
added a second, and not quite so comprehensible an 
objection — that these funds themselves might alloy the 
element of Faith in which the work had been so far 
carried on. She had thoroughly imbibed the spirit of 
Miiller, whose home at Bristol was professedly the out- 
come of Faith and Prayer alone. However, on my 
promise to publish only such particulars — name, local- 
ity, &c. — as she might approve, this lady gave me the 
details of her truly wonderful work. The building in 
which I found her had been erected to serve as large 
warehouses, and here no of the most veritable Arabs 
were housed, fed, taught, and converted into Christians, 
when so convertible. Should they prove impression- 



EAST LONDOX ARABS. j i 

able, Miss Macpherson then contemplates their emigra- 
tion to Canada. Many had already been sent out ; and 
her idea was to extend her operations in this respect ; 
not, be it observed, to cast hundreds of the scum of the 
East End of London upon Canada — a proceeding to 
which the Canadians would very naturally object — but 
to form a Home on that side to be fed from the Homes 
on this, and so to remove from the old scenes of vice 
and temptation those who had been previously trained 
in the refuges here. She has it in contemplation to 
take a large hotel in Canada, and convert it into an in- 
stitution of this kind ; and I fancy it was the possibil- 
ity that publicity might aid this larger scheme which 
eventually induced the good lady to let the world so far 
know what she is doing. At all events, she gave me 
carte blanche to publish the results of my observations. 

In selecting and dealing with the inmates of her ref- 
uges, Miss Macpherson avails herself of the science of 
phrenology, in which she believes, and she advances 
good reason for so doing. I presume my phrenolog- 
ical development must have been satisfactory, since 
she not only laid aside her objection to publicity, but 
even allowed me to carry off with me her MS. "case- 
books," from which I cull one or two of several hun- 
dred : — 

'' I. T. S., aged ten (March 5, 1869). — An orphan. 
Mother died in St. George's Workhouse. Father killed 
by coming in contact with a diseased sheep, being a 
slaughterman. A seller of boxes in the street. Slept 
last in a bed before Christmas. Slept in haycarts, un- 
der a tarpaulin. Says the prayers his mother ' teached 
him.' " 

"2. J. H., aged twelve (March 5). — No home but the 



12 MYSTIC LONDON. 

streets. Father killed by an engine-strap, being an 
engineer. Mother died of a broken heart. Went into 

Workhouse ; but ran away through ill-treatment 

last December. Slept in ruins near Eastern Counties 
Railway. Can't re7nember when he last lay in a bed." 

"3. A. R., aged eleven (March 5). — Mother and 
father left him and two brothers in an empty room in 

H Street. Policeman, hearing them crying, broke 

open the door and took them to the workhouse. His 
two brothers died. Was moved from workhouse by 
grandmother, and she, unable to support him, turned 
him out on the streets. Slept in railway ruins ; lived 
by begging. July 24, sent to Home No. i as a reward 
for good conduct." 

Besides thus rescuing hundreds of homeless ones, 
Miss Macpherson has in many instances been the means 
of restoring runaway children of respectable parents. 
Here is an instance : — 

"Feb. 25th. — S. W. T., aged fourteen, brought into 
Refuge by one of the night teachers, who noticed him in 
a lodging-house respectably dressed. Had walked up 

to London from N , in company with two sailors 

(disreputable men, whom the lodging-house keeper 
declined to take in). Had been reading sensational 

books. Wrote to address at N . Father telegraphed 

to keep him. Uncle came for him with fresh clothes 
and took him home. He had begun to pawn his clothes 
for his night's lodgings. His father had been for a 
fortnight in communication with the police." 

The constables in the neighborhood all know Miss 
Macpherson 's Refuge, and her readiness to take boys 
in at any time ; so that many little vagrants are brought 
thither by them and reclaimed, instead of being locked 



EAST LONDON ARABS. 



n 



up and ijent to prison, to go from bad to worse. Besides 
this receptacle for boys, Miss Macpherson has also a 
Home at Hackney, where girls of the same class are 
housed. The plan she adopts is to get a friend to be 
responsible for one child. The cost she reckons at 6/. 
loi". per annum for those under ten years, and lo/. for 
those above. 

But this excellent lady's good works are by no means 
catalogued yet. Besides the children being fed and 
taught in these Homes, the parents and children are 
constantly gathered for sewing classes, tea meetings, 
&c., at the Refuge. Above 400 children are thus 
influenced ; and Miss Macpherson, with her coadjutors, 
systematically visits the wretched dens and lodging- 
houses into which no well-dressed person, unless favor- 
ably known like her for her work among the children 
would dare to set foot. I was also present when a 
hearty meal of excellent soup and a large lump of bread 
were given to between three and four hundred men, 
chiefly dock laborers out of employ. It was a touch- 
ing sight to notice the stolid apathy depicted on most of 
the countenances, which looked unpleasantly like de- 
spair. One of the men assured me that for every pack- 
age that had to be unladen from the docks there were 
ten pair of hands ready to do the work, where only one 
could be employed. Many of the men, he assured me, 
went for two, sometimes three, days without food : and 
with the large majority of those assembled the meal 
they were then taking .would represent the whole of 
their subsistence for the twenty-four hours. After sup- 
per a hymn was sung, and a few words spoken to them 
by Miss Macpherson on the allegory of the Birds and 
Flowers in the Sermon on the Mount ; and so they 



14 MYSTIC LONDON. 

sallied forth into the darkness of Arabia Petraea. I 
mounted to the little boy's bedroom, where the tiniest 
Arab)s of all were enjoying the luxury of a game, with 
bare feet, before retiring. Miss Macpherson dragged a 
mattress off one of the beds and threw it down in the 
centre for them to tumble head-over-tail ; and, as she 
truly said, it was difficult to recognize in those merry 
shouts and happy faces any remains of the veriest repro- 
bates of the London streets. 

Let us hear Miss Macpherson herself speak. In a 
published pamphlet, " Our Perishing Little Ones," she 
says : "As to the present state of the mission, we simply 
say ' Come and see.' It is impossible by words to give 
an idea of the mass of 120,000 precious souls who live 

on this one square mile My longing is to send 

forth, so soon as the ice breaks, 500 of our poor street 
boys, waifs and strays, that have been gathered in, to 
the warm-hearted Canadian farmers. In the meantime, 
who will help us to make outfits, and collect 5/. for each 
little Arab, that there be no hindrance to the complement 
being made up when the spring time is come .''.... La- 
dies who are householders can aid us much in endeavors 
to educate these homeless wanderers to habits of industry 
by sending orders for their firewood — 4^-. per hundred 
bundles, sent free eight miles from the city." And, 
again, in Miss Macpherson's book called " The Little 
Matchmakers," she says : " In this work of faith and 
labor of love among the very lowest in our beloved 
country, let us press on, looking for great things. Pre- 
venting sin and crime is a much greater work than 
curing it. There are still many things on my heart 
requiring more pennies. As they come, we will go 
forward." 



1 



EAST LONDON ARABS. ' 15 

Miss Macpherson's motto is, " The Word first in all 
things ; afterwards bread for this body." There are 
some of us who would be inclined to reverse this process 
— to feed the body and educate the mind — not altogether 
neglecting spiritual culture, even at the earliest stage, 
but leaving anything like definite religious schooling 
until the poor mind and body were, so to say, acclima- 
tized. It is, of course, much easier to sit still and theo- 
rize and criticise than to do what these excellent people 
have done and are doing to diminish this gigantic evil. 
" By their fruits ye shall know them," is a criterion 
based on authority that we are none of us inclined to 
dispute. Miss Macpherson boasts — and a very proper 
subject for boasting it is — that she belongs to no ism. 
It is signihcant, however, that the Refuge bears, or 
bore the name of the " Revival " Refuge, and the paper 
which contained the earliest accounts of its working was 
called the Revivalist., though now baptized with the 
border title of the Christian. Amid such real work it 
would be a pity to have the semblance of unreality, and 
I dreaded to think of the possibility of its existing, when 
little grimy hands were held out by boys volunteering 
to say a text for my behoof. By far the most, favorite 
one was "Jesus wept;" next came "God is love" — 
each most appropriate ; but the sharp boy, a few years 
older, won approval by a long and more doctrinal quo- 
tation_, whilst several of these held out hands again when 
asked whether, in the course of the day, they had felt 
the efficacy of the text given on the previous evening, 
" Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth ; keep Thou 
the door of my lips." Such an experience would be a 
sign of advanced spirituality in an adult. It is ungener- 
ous to ask whether its manifestation in an Arab child 



1 6 MYSTIC LONDON. 

must not be an anticipation of what might be the normal 
result of a few years' training ? May not this kind of 
forcing explain the cases I saw quoted in the books — of 
one boy who " felt like a fish out of water, and left the 
same day of his own accord j " another who " climbed 
out of a three-floor window and escaped ? " 

However, here is the good work being done. Let us 
not carp at the details, but help it on, unless we can do 
better ourselves. One thing has been pre-eminently 
forced in upon me during this brief examination of our 
London Arabs — namely, that individuals work better 
than communities amongst these people. -The work 
done by the great establishments, whether of England, 
Rome, or Protestant Dissent, is insignificant compared 
with that carried out by persons laboring like Mr. Hut- 
ton in Seven Dials and Miss Macpherson in White- 
chapel, untrammelled by any particular system. The 
want and sorrow and suffering are individual, and 
need individual care, just as the Master of old worked 
Himself, and sent His scripless missionaries singly forth 
to labor for Him, as — on however incommensurate a 
scale — they are still laboring East and West, amongst 
our Lon(Jon Arabs. 



CHAPTER in. 

LONDON AR,ABS IN CANADA. 

N the previous chapter an account was given of the 
Arabs inhabiting that Vv^onderful " square mile " in 
East London, w^hich has since grown to be so familiar 



I 



^g| 



LONDON ARABS IN CANADA. 1 7 

in men's mouths. The labors of Miss Macpherson to- 
wards reclaiming these waifs and strays in her " Refuge 
and Home of Industry, Commercial Street, Spitalfields," 
were described at some length, and allusion was at the 
same time made to the views which that lady entertained 
with regard to the exportation of those Arabs to Can- 
ada after they should have undergone a previous pro- 
bationary training in the " Home." A short time after- 
wards it was my pleasing duty to witness the departure 
of one hundred of these young boys from the St. Pancras 
Station, en route for Canada ; and it now strikes me 
that some account of the voyage out, in the shape of 
excerpts from the letters of the devoted ladies who 
themselves accompanied our Arabs across the Atlantic, 
may prove interesting ; while, at the same time, a calcu- 
lation of their probable success in their new life and 
homes may not improbably stimulate those who cannot 
give their time, to give at least their countenance, and 
it may be, their material aid, to a scheme which recom- 
mends itself to all our sympathies — the permanent re- 
clamation of the little homeless wanderers of our London 
streets. 

The strange old rambling " Home " in Commercial 
Street, built originally for warehouses, then used as a 
cholera hospital, and now the Arab Refuge, presented 
a strange appearance during the week before the depart- 
ure of the chosen hundred. On the ground-floor were 
the packages of the young passengers ; on the first floor 
the " new clothes, shirts, and stockings, sent by kind 
lady friends from all parts of the khigdom, trousers and 
waistcoats made by the widows, and the boots and pilot 
jackets made by the boys themselves." The dormitory 
was the great store-closet for all the boy's bags filled 



l8 MYSTIC LONDON. 

with things needful on board ship ; and on the top floor, 
we can well imagine, the last day was a peculiarly melan- 
choly one. The work attendant upon the boys' last 
meal at the Refuge was over, and there, in the long 
narrow kitchen, stood the cook wiping away her tears 
with her apron, and the six little waiting maids around 
them, with the novel feeling of having nothing to do — 
there, where so much cutting, buttering, and washing-up 
had been the order of the day. When the summons 
came to start, the police had great difficulty in clearing 
a way for the boys to the vans through the surging mass 
of East London poverty. Some of the little match-box 
makers ran all the three miles from Commercial Street 
to St. Pancras Station to see the very last of their boy- 
friends. 

Derby was the stopping-place on the journey to Liver- 
pool, and the attention of passengers and guards was 
arrested by this strange company gathering on the plat- 
form at midnight and singing two of the favorite Refuge 
hymns. Liverpool was reached at 4 a. m., and the boys 
filed off in fours, with their canvas bags over their 
shoulders, to the river side, where their wondering eyes 
beheld the Peruvian, which was to bear them to their 
new homes. 

At this point. Miss Macpherson's sister — -who is carry- 
ing on the work of the Refuge during that lady's absence 
— wrote as follows : — " Could our Christian friends have 
seen the joy that beamed in the faces of those hundred 
lads from whom we have just parted — could they know 
the misery, the awful precipice of crime and sin from 
which they had been snatched — we are sure their hearts 
would be drawn out in love for those little ones. If; 
still supported," she continues, 'T hope to send out 



I 



LONDON ARABS IN CANADA. ic^ 

another party of fifty boys and fifty girls while my sister 
remains in Canada, and shall be happy to forward the 
name and history of a boy or girl to any kind friend 
wishing to provide for a special case. In the broad fields 
of that new country where the farmers are only too glad 
to adopt healthy young boys or girls into their families, 
hundreds of our perishing little ones may find a happy 
home." 

On Thursday, the 12th of May, the /*^/7/27/^;z dropped 
down the river ; and, as the last batch of friends left her 
when she passed out into the Channel, these one hun- 
dred boys, with Miss Macpherson, leaned over the 
bulwarks, singing the hymn, " Yes, we part, but not for 
ever." 

From Derry Miss Macpherson wrote under date May 
13th: — "With the exception of two, all are on deck 
now, as bright as larks : they have carried up poor Jack 
Frost and Franks the runner. It is most touching to 
see them wrap them up in their rugs. Michael Flinn, 
the Shoreditch shoeblack, was up all night, caring for 
the sick boys. Poor Mike ! He and I have exchanged 
nods at the Eastern Counties Railway corner these five 
years. It is a great joy to give him such a chance for 
life." 

The voyage out was prosperous enough, though there 
were some contrary winds, and a good deal of sea-sick- 
ness among the lads. The captain seems to have been 
quite won by the self-denying kindness of the ladies, and 
he lightened their hands by giving occupation to the 
boys. Then came out the result of training at the 
Refuge. Those who had been some time there showed 
themselves amenable to discipline ; but the late arrivals 
were more fractious, and diilRcult to manage. These 



20 MYSTIC LONDON. 

were the lads '' upon whom," as Miss Macpherson says, 
" the street life had left sore marks." Even when only 
nearing the American coast, this indomitable lady's 
spirit is planning a second expedition. " As far as I 
dare make plans, I should like to return, starting from 
Montreal July i6th, reaching the Home July 27th, and 
then return with another lot the second week in August. 
This second lot must be lads who are now under influ- 
ence, and who have been not less than six months in a 
refuge." The finale to this second letter, written from 
Canada, adds : " The boys, to a man, behaved splendid- 
ly. The agent's heart is won. All have improved by 
the voyage, and many are brown hearty-looking chaps 
fit for any toil." 

In the Montreal Herald, of May 27th, there is an 
account of these boys after their arrival, which says : — 
" Miss Macpherson is evidently a lady whose capacity 
for organization and command is of the very highest 
order ; for boys, in most hands, are not too easily man- 
aged, but in hers they were as obedient as a company 

of soldiers These boys will speedily be 

placed in positions, where they will grow up respect- 
able and respected members of society, with access to 
the highest positions in the country freely open to them. 

We hope that Miss Macpherson will 

place all her boys advantageously, and will bring us 
many more. She is a benefactor to the Empire in both 
hemispheres." 

The importance of this testimony can scarcely be 
overrated, since many persons hold themselves aloof 
from a work of this nature through a feeling that it is 
not fair to draft our Arab population on a colony. It 
will be seen, however, that it is not proposed to export 



LONDON ARABS IN CANADA. 21 

these boys until they shall have been brought well under 
influence, and so have got rid of what Miss Macpherson 
so graphically terms the " sore marks of their street life." 

Apropos of this subject, it may not be irrelevant to 
quote a communication which has been received from 
Sir John Young, the Governor-General of Canada, 
dated Ottawa, May 3d, 1870 : — " For emigrants able 
and wdlling to work, Canada offers at present a very 
good prospect. The demand for agricultural laborers 
in Ontario during the present year is estimated at from 
30,000 to 40,000 ; and an industrious man may expect 
to make about one dollar a day throughout the year, if 
he is willing to turn his hand to clearing land, thresh- 
ing, &c., during the winter. But it is of no use for 
emigrants to come here unless they make up their 
minds to take w^hatever employment offers itself most 
readily, without making difficulties because it is not 
that to which they have been accustomed, or which 
they prefer." 

I visited the Refuge and Home of Industry a few 
nights afterwards, and, though Miss Macpherson was 
absent, found all in working order. Sixty-three boys 
were then its occupants. The superintendent was 
anxiously looking forward to be able to carry out the 
plan of despatching fifty boys and fifty girls during the 
ensuing summer. The sum required for an East End 
case is ^5; for a special case, £\o. The following 
are specimens of about sixty cases of boys whom she 
would like to send out, knowing that in Canada they 
could readily obtain places : — 

P. E., aged seventeen. — Mother died of fever, leaving 
seven children ; father a dock laborer, but cannot get 
full employment. 



2 2 MYSTIC LONDON. 

L. J., aged thirteen.— Mother dead ; does not know 
where her father is ; has been getting her living by 
singing songs in the lodging-houses ; is much improved 
by her stay in the Home, and will make a tidy little 
maid. This is just one of the many who might thus 
be rescued from a life of sin and misery. 

Returning home through the squalid streets that 
night, where squatters were vending old shoes and 
boots that seemed scarcely worth picking out of the 
kennel, and garments that appeared beneath the notice 
of the rag merchant, I saw the little Bedouins still in 
full force, just as though no effort had been made for 
their reclamation and housing. As they crowded the 
doorsteps, huddled in the gutters, or vended boxes of 
lights and solicited the honor of shining " your boots, 
sir," I could not help picturing them crossing the sea, 
under kindly auspices, to the " better land " beyond, and 
anon, in the broad Canadian fields or busy Canadian 
towns, growing into respectable farmers and citizens ; 
and straightway each 1 ittle grimed, wan face seemed to 
bear a new interest for me, and look wistfully up into 
mine with a sort of rightful demand on my charity, 
saying to me, and through me to my many readers, 
" Come and help us ! '' 

After the foregoing was written, a further letter ar- 
rived from Miss Macpherson. All the boys were well 
placed. The agent at Quebec wished to take the 
whole hundred in a lump, but only ten were conceded to 
him. At Montreal, too, all would have been taken, but 
twenty-one only were left. All found excellent situa- 
tions, many as house servants at ;^io and ^^15 a year. 
Eight were in like manner left at Belleville, half way 
between Montreal and Toronto. Sixtv were taken on 



WAIFS AND STRAYS. 23 

to Toronto ; and here we are told " the platform v.-as 
crowded with farmers anxious to engage them all at 
once. It was difficult to get them to the office." A 
gentleman arrived from Hamilton, saying that sixty ap- 
plications had been sent in for boys, directly it was 
known Miss Macpherson was coming out. So there is 
no need of anticipating anything like repugnance on 
the part of the Canadians to the reception of our super- 
fluous Arabs, 



CHAPTER IV. 

WAIFS AND STRAYS. 

A MONG the various qualifications for the festivities 
''^ of Christmastide and New Year, there is one 
\^•hich is, perhaps, not so generally recognized as it 
might be. Some of us are welcomed to the bright 
fireside or the groaning table on the score of our social 
and conversational qualities. At many and many a 
cheery board, poverty is the only stipulation that is 
made. I mean not now that the guests shall occupy 
the unenviable position of " poor relations," but, in the 
large-hearted charity that so widely prevails at that fes- 
tive season, the need of a dinner is being generally ac- 
cepted as a title to that staple requirement of existence. 
Neither of these, however, is the distinction required in 
order to entitle those who bear it to the hospitality of 
Mr. Edward Wright, better known under the abbrevi- 
ated title of " Ned," and without the prefatory " Mr." 
That one social quality, without v/hich a seat at Ned 



24 MYSTIC LONDON. 

Wright's festive board cannot be compassed, is Felony. 
A little, rakish-looking green ticket was circulated a few 
days previously among the members of Mr. Wright's 
former fraternity, bidding them to a " Great Supper " in 
St. John's Chapel, Penrose Street (late West Street), 
Walworth, got up under the auspices of the South-East 
London Mission. The invitation ran as follows: — 

" This ticket is only available for a male person who 
has been convicted once for felony, and is not transfer- 
able. We purpose providing a good supper of bread 
and soup, after which an address will be given. At 
the close of the meeting a parcel of provisions will be 
given to each man. Supper will be provided in the 
lower part of the chapel. Boys not admitted this 
time. — Your friend, for Christ's sake, 

" Ned Wright." 

Why juvenile felons should be excluded " this time," 
and whether the fact of having been convicted more 
than once would confer any additional privileges, did 
not appear at first sight. So it was, however ; adult 
felonious Walworth was bidden to the supper, and to 
the supper it came. Among the attractions held out to 
spectators of the proceedings was the announcement 
that a magistrate was to take part in them — a fact that 
possibly was not made generally known among the guests, 
in whose regard it is very questionable whether the pres- 
ence of the dreaded " beak " might not have proved 
the reverse of a " draw." However, they came, pos- 
sibly in happy ignorance of the potentate who was 
awaiting them, and than whom there is one only crea- 
tion of civilized life considered by the London cadger 
his more natural enemy, that is the policeman. 

Six o'clock was the hour appointed for the repast, 



JVAIFS AND STRAYS. 25 

and there was no need for the wanderer in Walworth 
Road to inquire which was Penrose Street. Little groups 
of shambling fellows hulked about the coiner waiting 
for some one to lead the way to the unaccustomed chap- 
el. Group after group, however, melted away into the 
dingy building where Ned was ready to \velcome them. 
With him I found, not one magistrate, but two ; one the 
expected magnate from the country, the other a w^ell- 
known occupant of the London bench, with whom, I 
fancy, many of the guest3 could boast a previous ac- 
quaintance of a character the reverse of desirable. Pen- 
rose Street Chapel had been formerly occupied by the 
Unitarians, but was then taken permanently by Ned 
Wright at a rental of between 60/. and 70/. per annum, 
and formed the third of his " centres," the others be- 
ing under a railway arch in the New Kent Road, and 
the Mission Hall, Deptford. As row by row filled with 
squalid occupants, I could but scan from my vantage- 
ground in the gallery the various physiognomies. I am 
bound to say the typical gaol-bird was but feebly repre- 
sented. The visitors looked like hard-working men — a 
■ little pinched and hungry, perhaps, and in many cases 
obviously dejected and ashamed of the qualification 
which gave them their seat. One or t-wo, mostly of the 
younger, came in with a swagger and a rough joke ; but 
Ned and his guests knew one another, and he quickly 
removed the lively young gentleman to a quiet corner 
out of harm's way. A fringe of, spectators, mostly 
female, occupied the front seat in the gallery when pro- 
ceedings commenced, which they did wdth a hymn, com- 
posed by Ned Wright himself. The ladies' voices proved 
very useful in this respect ; but most of the men took 
the printed copies of the hymns, which were handed 



26 MYS TIC L OND ON: 

round, and looked as if the}^ could read them, not a few 
proving they could by singing full-voiced. After the 
hymn, Wright announced that he had ordered eighty 
gallons of soup — some facetious gentleman suggesting, 
" That's about a gallon a-piece " — and he hoped all 
would get enough. Probably about loo guests had 
by this time assembled, and each was provided with a 
white basin, which was filled by Ned and his assistants, 
with soup from a washing jug. A paper bag contain- 
ing half a quartern loaf was aj^o given to each, and the 
contents rapidly disappeared. As the fragrant steam 
mounted provokingly from the soup-basins up to the 
gallery, Mr. Wright took occasion to mention that at the 
last supper Mr. Clark, of the New Cut, furnished the 
soup gratuitously — a fact which he thought deserved to 
be placed on record. 

In the intervals of the banquet, the host informed me 
that he had already witnessed forty genuine " conver- 
sions " as the results of these gatherings. He had, as 
usual, to contend with certain obtrusive gentlemen who 
" assumed the virtue " of felony, " though they had it not," 
and were summarily dismissed with the assurance that 
he " didn't want no tramps." One mysterious young 
man came in and sat down on a front row, but did not 
remain two minutes before a thought seemed to strike 
him, and he beat a hasty retreat. Whether he was pos- 
sessed with the idea I had to combat on a previous 
occasion of the same kind, that I was a policeman, I 
cannot tell, but he never reappeared. I hope I was not 
the innocent cause of his losing his supper. The only 
" felonious " trait I observed was a furtive glance every 
now and then cast around, and especially up to the gal- 
lery. Beyond this there really was little to distinguish 



IVAIFS AND STRA YS. 



27 



the gathering from a meeting of artisans a httle bit 
"down on their luck," or out on strike, or under some 
cloud of that sort. 

As supper progressed, the number of spectators in 
the gallery increased; and, with all due deference 
to Ned Wright's good intentions, it may be open to 
question whether this presence of spectators in the gal- 
lery is wise. It gives a sort of spurious dash and bra- 
vado to the calling of a felon to be supping in public, 
and have ladies looking on, just like the " swells " at a 
public dinner. I am sure some of the younger men 
felt this, and swaggered through their supper accordingly. 
There certainly was not a symptom of shame on the 
face of a single guest, or any evidences of dejection* 
when once the pea-soup had done its work. Some of 
the very lively gentlemen in the front row even devoted 
themselves to making critical remarks on the occupants 
of the gallery. As a rule, and considering the antece- 
dents of the men, the assembly was an orderly one ; 
and would, I think, have been more so, but for the pres- 
ence of the fair sex in the upper regions, many of whom, 
it is but justice to say, were enjoying the small talk of 
certain oily-haired young missionaries, and quite uncon- 
scious of being the objects of admiring glances from 
below. 

Supper took exactly an hour, and .then came another 
hymn, Ned Wright telling his guests that the tune was 
somewhat difficult, but that the gallery would sing it for 
them first, and then they would be able to do it for 
themselves. Decidedly, Mr. Wright is getting " aesthe- 
tic." This hymn was, in fact, monopolized by the gal- 
lery, the men listening and evidently occupied in digest- 
ing their supper. One would rather have heard some 



28 MYSTIC LONDON. 

thing in which they could join. However, it was a lively 
march-tune, and they evidently liked it, and kept time 
to it with their feet, after the custom of the gods on 
Boxing Night. At this point Ned and five others 
mounted the little railed platform, Bible in hand, and 
the host read what he termed " a portion out of the 
Good Old Book," choosing appropriately Luke xv., 
which tells of the joy among angels over one sinner that 
repenteth, and the exquisite allegory of the Prodigal 
Son, which Ned read with a good deal of genuine pathos. 
It reminded him, he said, of old times. He himself 
was one of the first prisoners at Wadsworth when " old 
Brixton " was shut up. He had " done " three calen- 
dar months, and when he came out he saw an old grey- 
headed man, with a bundle. "That," said Ned, "was 
my godly old father, and the bundle was new clothes in 
place of my old rags." 

The country magistrate then came forward, and drew 
an ironical contrast between the " respectable " people 
in the gallery and the " thieves " down below. " God 
says we have all ' robbed him.' All are equal in God's 
sight. But some of us are pardoned thieves." At this 
point the discourse became theological, and fired over 
the heads of the people down below. They listened 
much as they listen to a magisterial remark from the 
bench; but it was not their own language, such as Ned 
speaks. It was the " beak," not the old " pal." It was 
not their vernacular. It did for the gallery — interested 
the ladies and the missionaries vastly, but not the thieves. 
It was wonderful that they bore it as well as they did. 
The magisterial dignity evidently overawed them ; but 
they soon got used to it, and yawned or sat listlessly. 
Some leant their heads on the rail in front and slept. 



WAIFS AND STRA YS. 20 

The latest arrivals left earliest. They had come to sup- 
per, not to sermon. 

Another of Ned Wright's hymns was then sung — Mr. 
^Yright's muse having been apparently prolific in the 
past year, no less than six hymns on the list being writ- 
ten by himself during those twelve months. It is much 
to be hoped that these poetical and aesthetical proclivities 
will not deaden his practical energies. This hymn was 
pitched distressingly high, and above the jDOwers of all 
but the " gallery " and a very few indeed of the guests ; 
but most of them put in a final " Glory, Hallelujah," at 
the end of each stanza. Mr. Wright's tunes are bright 
and cheerful in the extreme, without being vulgar or 
offensively secular. 

j The host himself then spoke a few words on the moral 
I of the Sermon on the Mount : " Seek ye first the king- 
dom of God and His righteousness." He claimed many 
of those before him as old pals who had "drunk out of 
the same pot and shuffled the same pack of cards," and 
jcontrasted his present state with theirs. Then they 
listened, open-mouthed and eager-eyed, though they had 
been sitting two full hours. He pictured the life of 
I Christ, and His love for poor men. " Christ died for 
you," he said, "as well as for the 'big people.' Who is 
that on the cross beside the son of God t " he asked in 
an eloquent apostrophe. " It is a thief. Come to 
Christ, and say, ' I've no character. I'm branded as a 
felon. I'm hunted about the streets of London.' He 
will accept you," He drew a vivid picture of the num- 
ber of friends he had when he rowed for Dogget's Coat 
and Badge. He met with an accident midway ; " and 
when I got to the Swan at Chelsea," he said, " I had no 
friends left. I was a losinsf man. Christ will never 



30 MYSTIC LONDON. 

treat you like that. He has never let me want in the 
nine years since I have been converted." After a 
prayer the assembly broke up, only those being request- 
ed to remain who required advice. The prayer was 
characteristic, being interspersed with groans from the 
gallery ; and then a paper bag, containing bread and 
cakes, was given to each, Ned observing, "There, thej 
devil don't give you that. He gives you toke and 
skilly." Being desired to go quietly, one gentleman j 
expressed a hope that there was no policeman ; another 
adding, "We don't want to get lagged." Ned had to 
reassure them on my score once more, and then nearly 
all disappeared — some ingenious guests managing to gett 
two and three bags by going out and coming in again,, 
until some one in the gallery meanly peached ! 

Only some half-dozen out of the hundred remained 
and Ned Wright kneeling at one of the benches prayed 
fervently, and entered into conversation with them one 
by one. Two or three others dropped in, and there was^j 
much praying and groaning, but evidently much sin 
cerity. And so with at least some new impressions forj 
good, some cheering hopeful words to take them on inn 
the New Year, those few waifs and strays passed out into;) 
the darkness, to retain, let it be hoped, some at least ofl 
the better influences which were brought to bear uponj 
them in that brighter epoch in their darkened lives 
when Ned Wright's invitation gathered them to the^3 
Thieves' Supper. 



> J 



A LJNATIC BALL. 3, 



CHAPTER V. 

LUNATIC BALL 



/^NE half of the world believes the other half to be 
^-^ mad ; and who shall decide which moiety is right, 
the reputed lunatics or the supposed sane, since neither 
party can be unprejudiced in the matter ? At present 
the minority believe that it is a mere matter of numbers, 
and that if intellect carried the day, and right were not 
overborne by might, the position of parties would be 
exactly reversed. The dilemma forced itself strongly 
on my consciousness for a solution when I attended the 
annual ball at Hanwell Lunatic Asylum. The prevail- 
ing opinion inside the walls was that the majority of 
madmen lay outside, and that the most hopelessly 
insane people in all the world were the officers immedi- 
ately concerned in the management of the establishment 
itself. 

It was a damp muggy January evening when I jour- 
neyed to this suburban retreat. It rained dismally, and 
the wind nearly blew the porter out of his lodge as he 
obeyed our summons at the Dantesque portal of the 
institution, in passing behind which so many had liter- 
ally abandoned hope. I tried to fancy how it would 
feel if one were really being consigned to that recepta- 
cle by interested relatives, as we read in three-volume 
novels j but it was no use. I* was one of a merry com- 
pany on that occasion. The officials of Hanwell Asy- 
lum had been a little shy of being handed down to fame ; 



22 MYSTIC LONDON. : 

so I adopted the ruse of getting into Herr Gustav 
Kiister's corps of fiddlers for the occasion. However, 
I must in fairness add that the committee during the 
evening withdrew the taboo they had formerly placed 
on my writing. I was free to immortalize them ; and 
my fiddling was thenceforth a work of supererogation. 

High jinks commenced at the early hour of six ; and 
long before that time we had deposited our instruments 
in the Bazaar, as the ball-room is somewhat incon- 
gruously called, and were threading the Daedalean 
mazes of the wards. Life in the wards struck me as 
being very like living in a passage ; but when that 
preliminary objection was got over, the long corridors 
looked comfortable enough. They were painted in 
bright warm colors, and a correspondingly genial tem- 
perature was secured by hot-water pipes running the 
entire length. Comfortable rooms opened out from 
the wards at frequent intervals, and there was every 
form of amusement to beguile the otherwise irksome 
leisure of those temporary recluses. Most of my her- 
mits were smoking — I mean on the male side^many 
were reading; one had a fiddle, and I scraped acquaint- 
ance immediately with him ; whilst another was seated 
at the door of his snug little bedroom, getting up 
cadenzas on the ilute. He was an old trombone- 
player in one of the household regiments, an inmate 
of Hanwell for thirty years, and a fellow bandsman 
with myself for the evening. He looked, I thought, 
quite as sane as myself, and played magnificently ; but 
I was informed by the possibly prejudiced ofiicials that 
he had his occasional weaknesses. A second member 
of Herr Kiister's band whom I found in durance was a 
clarionet player, formerly in the band of the Second 



A LUNATIC BALL. 33 

Life Guards ; and this poor fellow, who was an excel- 
lent musician too, felt his position acutely. He apolo- 
jgized sotto voce for sitting down with me in corduroys, 
as well as for being an " imbecile." He did not seem 
!to question the justice of the verdict against him, and 
I had not become acclimatized to the atmosphere like the 
old trombone player. 

That New Year's night— for January was very young 
— the wards, especially on the women's side, were gaily 
decorated with paper flowers, and all looked as cheerful 
and happy as though no shadow ever fell across the 
threshold ; but, alas, there were every now and then 
padded rooms opening out of the passage ; and as this 
was not a refractory ward, I asked the meaning of the 
arrangement, which I had imagined was an obsolete 
one. I was told they were for epileptic patients. In 
virtue of his official position as bandmaster, Herr 
Kiister had a key ; and, after walking serenely into a 
passage precisely like the rest, informed me, with the 
utmost coolness, that I was in the refractory ward. I 
looked around for the stalwart attendant, who is gener- 
ally to be seen on duty, and to my dismay found he 
was quite at the other end of an exceedingly long 
corridor. I do not know that I am particularly nervous, 
but I candidly confess to an anxiety to get near that 
worthy official. We were only three outsiders, and the 
company looked mischievous. One gentleman was 
walking violently up and down, turning up his coat 
sleeves, as though bent on our instant demolition. 
I Another, an old grey-bearded man, came up, and 
I fiercely demanded if I were a Freemason. I was 
afraid he might resent my saying I was not, when it 
happily occurred to me that the third in our party, an 



34 MYSTIC LONDON. 

amateur contra-bassist, was of the craft. I told oui 
friend so. He demanded the sign, was satisfied, and, 
in the twinkling of an eye, our double-bass friend was 
struggling in his fraternal embrace. The warder, mis- 
taking the character of the hug, hastened to the rescue, 
and I was at ease. 

We then passed to the ball-room, where my musical 
friends were beginning to " tune up," and waiting foi 
their conductor. The large room was gaily decorated, 
and filled with some three or four hundred patients, 
arranged Spurgeon-wise : the ladies on one side, and 
the gentlemen on the other. There was a somewhat 
rakish air about the gathering, due to the fact of the 
male portion not being in full dress, but arrayed in 
free-and-easy costume of corduroys and felt boots. 
The frequent warders in their dark blue uniforms lent 
quite a military air to the scene ; and on the ladies' 
side the costumes were more picturesque ; some little 
latitude was allowed to feminine taste, and the result 
was that a large portion of the patients were gorgeous 
in pink gowns. One old lady, who claimed to be a 
scion of royalty, had a resplendent mob-cap ; but the 
belles of the ball-room were decidedly to be found 
among the female attendants, who were bright, fresh- 
looking young women, in a neat, black uniform, with 
perky little caps, and bunches of keys hanging at their 
side like the rosary of a soeur de charite, or the chate- i 
laines with which young ladies love to adorn themselves i 
at present. Files of patients kept streaming into the I 
already crowded room, and one gentleman, reversing ; 
the order assigned to him by nature, walked gravely in 
on the palms of his hands, with his legs elevated in the | 
air. He had been a clown at a theatre, and still re- * 



A LUNATIC BALL. 



35 



tained some of the proclivities of the boards. A wizen- 
faced man, who seemed to have no name beyond the 
conventional one of " Billy," strutted in with huge 
' paper collars, like the corner man in a nigger troupe, 
I and a tin decoration on his breast the size of a cheese- 
plate. He was insensible to the charms of Terpsichore, 
except in the shape of an occasional/^ji' seul^ and labored 
under the idea that his mission was to conduct the band, 
which he occasionally did, to the discomfiture of Herr 
Kiister, and the total destruction of gravity on the part 
of the executants, so that Billy had to be displaced. 
It was quite curious to notice the effect of the music on 
some of the quieter patients. One or two, whose coun- 
tenances really seemed to justify their incarceration, 
absolutely hugged the foot of my music stand, and 
would not allow me to hold my instrument for a moment 
when I was not playing on it, so anxious were they to 
express their admiration of me as an artist. " I used 
to play that instrument afore I came here," said a 
patient, with a squeeky voice, who for eleven 3^ears has 
labored under the idea that his mother is coming to see 
him on the morrow ; indeed, most of the little group 
around the platform looked upon their temporary sojourn 
at Hanwell as the only impediment to a bright career 
in the musical world. 

Proceedings commenced with the Caledonians, and 
it was marvellous to notice the order, not to say grace 
and refinement with which all these pauper lunatics went 
through their parts in the " mazy." The rosy-faced at- 
tendants formed partners for the men, and I saw a her- 
culean warder gallantly leading along the' stout old lady 
in the mob-cap. The larger number of the patients of 
course were paired with their fellow-prisoners, and at 



7^e MYSTIC LONDON. 

the top of the room the officials danced with some oi 
the swells. Yes, there were swells here, ball-room cox- 
combs in fustian and felt. One in particular was 
pointed out to me as an University graduate of high 
family, and on my inquiring how such a man became 
an inmate of a pauper asylum the official said, "You 
see, sir, when the mind goes the income often goes too, 
and the people become virtually paupers." Insanity is 
a great leveller, true ; but I could not help picturing 
that man's lucid intervals, and wondering whether his 
friends might not do better for him. But there he is, 
pirouetting away with the pretty female organist, the 
chaplain standing by and smiling approval, and the 
young doctors doing the polite to a few invited guests, 
but not disdaining, every now and then, to take a turn 
with a patient. Quadrilles and Lancers follow, but no 
" round dances." A popular prejudice on the part of 
the majority sets down such dances as too exciting for 
the sensitive dancers. The graduate is excessively 
irate at this, and rates the band soundly for not playing 
a valse. Galops are played, but not danced; a com- 
plicated movement termed a "Circassian circle" being 
substituted in their place. " Three hours of square 
dances are really too absurd," said the graduate to an 
innocent second fiddle. 

In the centre of the room all was gravity and deco- 
rum, but the merriest dances went on in corners. An 
Irish quadrille was played, and an unmistakable Paddy 
regaled himself with a most beautiful jig. He got on 
by himself for a figure or two, when, remembering, no 
doubt, that " happiness was born a twin," he dived into 
the throng, selected a white-headed old friend of some 
sixty years, and impressed him with the idea of '^ pas 



A LUNATIC BALL. 37 

de deux. There they kept it up in a corner for the 
whole of the quadrille, twirling imaginary shillelaghs, 
and encouraging one another with that expressive Irish 
interjection, which it is so impossible to put down on 
paper. For an hour all went merry as the proverbial 
marriage bell, and then there was an adjournment of the 
male portion of the company to supper. The ladies re- 
mained in the Bazaar and discussed oranges, with an 
occasional dance to the pianoforte, as the band retired 
for refreshment too, in one of the attendants' rooms. I 
followed the company to their cupper room, as I had 
come to see, not to eat. About four hundred sat down 
in a large apartment, and there were, besides, sundry 
snug supper-parties in smaller rooms. Each guest par- 
took of an excellent repast of meat and vegetables, with 
a sufficiency of beer and pipes to follow. The chap- 
lain said a short grace before supper, and a patient, who 
must have been a retired Methodist preacher, improved 
upon the brief benediction by a long rambling " asking 
of a blessing," to which nobody paid any attention. 
Then I passed up and down the long rows with a 
courteous official, who gave me little snatches of the 
history of some of the patients. Here was an actor of 
some note in his day ; there a barrister ; here again a 
clergyman; here a tradesman recently "gone," "all 
through the strikes, sir," he added. The shadow — that 
most mysterious shadow of all — had chequered life's 
sunshine in every one of these cases. Being as they 
are they could not be in a better place. They have the 
best advice they could get even were they — as some of 
them claim to be — princes. If they can be cured, here 
is the best chance. If not — well, there were the little 
dead-house and the quiet cemetery lying out in th(5 



38 MYSTIC LONDON. 

moonlight, and waiting for them when, as poor mad- 
dened Edgar Allen Poe wrote, the "fever called living," 
should be " over at last." But who talks of dying on 
this one night in all the year when even that old free- 
mason in the refractory ward was forgetting, after his 
own peculiar fashion, the cruel injustice that kept him 
out of his twelve thousand a year and title ? Universal 
merriment is the rule to-night. Six or seven gentle- 
men are on their legs at once making speeches, which 
are listened to about as respectfully as the " toast of 
the evening " at a public dinner. As many more are 
singing inharmoniously different songs ; the fun is get- 
ting fast and furious, perhaps a little too fast and furi- 
ous, when a readjournment to the ball-room is pro- 
posed, and readily acceded to, one hoary-headed old 
flirt remarking to me as he went by, that he was going 
to look for his sweetheart. 

A long series of square dances followed, the graduate 
waxing more and more fierce at each disappointment in 
his anticipated valse, and Billy giving out every change 
in the programme like a parish clerk, which functionary 
he resembled in many respects. It was universally 
agreed that this was the best party that had ever been 
held in the asylum, just as the last baby is always the 
finest in the family. Certainly the guests all enjoyed 
themselves. The stalwart attendants danced more 
than ever with a will, the rosy attendants were rosier 
and nattier than before, if possible. The mob-cap went 
whizzing about on the regal head of its owner down the 
middle of tremendous country dances, hands across, set 
to partners, and then down again as though it had 
never tasted the anxieties of a throne, or learnt by bit- 
ter experience the sorrows of exile. Even the aca- 



A LUNAl'IC BALL. 3^ 

demical gentleman relaxed to the fair organist, though 
he stuck up his hair stiffer than ever, and stamped his 
felt boots again as he passed the unoffending double- 
bass with curses both loud and deep on the subject of 
square dances. At length came the inevitable " God 
Save the Queen," which was played in one key by the 
orchestra, and sung in a great many different ones by 
the guests. It is no disrespect to Her Majesty to say 
that the National Anthem was received with anything 
but satisfaction. It was the signal that the "jinks " 
were over, and that was quite enough to make it un- 
popular. However, they sang lustily and with a good 
courage, all except the old woman in the mob-cab, who 
sat with a complacent smile as much as to say, " This is 
as it should be, I appreciate the honor done to my royal 
brothers and sisters." 

This is the bright side of the picture j but it had its 
sombre tints also. There were those in all the wards 
who stood aloof from the merriment, and would have 
none of the jinks. Lean-visaged men walked moodily 
up and down the passages like caged wild beasts. 
Their lucid interval was upon them, and they fretted at 
the irksome restraint and degrading companionship. It 
was a strange thought ; but I fancied they must have 
longed for their mad fit as the drunkard longs for the 
intoxicating draught, or the opium-eater for his delicious 
narcotic to drown the idea of the present. There were 
those in the ball-room itself who, if you approached them 
with the proffered pinch of snuff, drove you from them 
with curses. One fine, intellectual man, sat by the 
window all the evening, writing rhapsodies of the most 
extraordinary character, and fancying himself a poet. 
Another wrapped round a thin piece of lath with paper, 



4c MYSTIC LONDON. 

and superscribed it with some strange liieroglyphics, 
begging me to deliver it. All made arrangements for 
their speedy departure from Hanwell, though many in 
that heart-sick tone which spoke of long-deferred hope — • 
hope never perhaps to be realized. Most painful sight of 
all, there was one little girl there, a child of eleven or 
twelve years — a child in a lunatic asylum ? Think of 
that, parents, when you listen to the engaging nonsense 
of your little ones — think of the child in Hanwell wards ! 
Remember how narrow a line separates innocence from 
idiocy ; so narrow aline that the words were once synon- 
ymous ! 

There was the infirmary full of occupants on that 
merry New Year's night. Yonder poor patient being 
wheeled in a chair to bed will not trouble his attendant 
long. There is another being lifted on his pallet-bed, 
and having a cup of cooling drink applied to his parch- 
ed lips by the great loving hands of a warder who tends 
him as gently as a woman. It seems almost a cruel 
kindness to be trying to keep that poor body and soul 
together. 

Another hour, passed rapidly in the liberal hospitality 
of this great institution, and silence had fallen on its 
congregated thousands. It is a small town in itself, and 
to a large extent self-dependent and self-governed. It 
bakes and brews, and makes its gas ; and there is no 
need of a Licensing Bill to keep its inhabitants sober 
and steady. The method of doing that has been dis- 
covered in nature's own law of kindness. Instead of 
being chained and treated as wild beasts, the lunatics 
are treated as unfortunate men and women, and every 
effort is made to ameliorate, both physically and moral- 
ly, their 3ad condition. Ilcnce the bright wards, the 



A BABY SHOW. 41 

buxom attendants, the frequent jinks. Even the chapel- 
service has been brightened up for their behoof. 

This was what I saw by entering as an amateur fiddler 
Herr Kuster's band at Hanwell Asylum ; and as I ran 
to catch the' last up-train — which I did as the saying is 
by the skin of my teeth — I felt that I was a wiser, though 
it may be a sadder man, for my evening's experiences 
at the Lunatic Ball. 

One question would keep recurring to my mind. It 
has been said that if you stop your ears in a ball-room, 
and then look at the people — reputed sane — skipping 
about in the new valse or the last galop, you will ima- 
gine they must be all lunatics. I did not stop my ears 
that night, but I opened my eyes and saw hundreds of 
my fellow-creatures, all with some strange delusions, 
many with ferocious and vicious propensities, yet all 
kept in order by a few warders, a handful of girls, and 
all behaving as decorously as in a real ball-room. And 
the question which would haunt me all the way home 
was, which are the sane people, and which the lunatics ? 



CHAPTER VI. 

A BABY SHOW. 

nPHERE is no doubt that at the present moment the 
-"■ British baby is assuming a position amongst us of 
unusual prominence and importance. That he should 
be an institution is inevitable. That he grows upon 
us Londoners at the rate of some steady five hundred 
a week, the Registrar-General's statistics of the excess 



42 MYSTIC LONDON. 

of births over deaths prove beyond question. His 
domestic importance and powers of revolutionizing a 
household are facts of which every Paterfamilias is made, 
from time to time, unpleasantly aware. But the British 
baby is doing more than this just at present. He is 
assuming a public position. Perhaps it is only the 
faint index of the extension of women's rights to the 
infantile condition of the sexes. Possibly our age is 
destined to hear of Baby Suffrage, Baby's Property Pro- 
tection, Baby's Rights and Wrongs in general. It is 
beyond question that the British baby is putting itself 
forward, and demanding to be heard — as, in fact, it 
always had a habit of doing. Its name has been un- 
pleasently mixed up with certain revelations at Brixton, 
Camberwell, and Greenwich. Babies have come to be 
farmed like taxes or turnpike gates. The arable in- 
fants seem to gravitate towards the transpontine districts 
south of the Thames. It will be an interesting task for 
our Legislature to ascertain whether there is any actual 
law to account for the transfer, as it inevitably will 
have to do when the delicate choice is forced upon it 
between justifiable infanticide, wholesale Hospices des 
Enfants Trouves^ and possibly some kind of Japanese 
"happy despatch" for high-minded infants who are 
superior to the slow poison administered by injudicious 
" farmers." At all events, one fact is certain, and we can 
scarcely reiterate it too often — the British baby is be- 
coming emphatic beyond anything we can recollect as 
appertaining to the infantile days of the present genera- 
tion. It is as though a ray of juvenile " swellishness," a 
scintillation of hobbledehoyhood, were refracted upon 
the long clothes or three-quarter clothes of immaturity. 
For, if it is true — as we may tax our infantile expe- 



A BABY SHOW. 43 

riences to assure us — that '' farmed " infants were an 
article unknown to husbandry in our golden age, it is 
equally certain that the idea of the modern Baby Show 
was one which, in that remote era, would not have 
been tolerated „ Our mothers and grandmothers would 
as soon have thought of sacrificing an innocent to 
Moloch as to Mammon. What meant it then — to what 
can it be due — to precocity on the part of the British 
baby, or degeneracy on the part of the British parent 
— that two Baby Shows were " on " nearly at the same 
moment — one at Mr, Giovannelli's at Highbury Barn, 
the other at Mr. Holland's Gardens, North Woolwich .? 

Anxious to keep au courant with the times, even 
when those times are chronicled by the rapid career of 
the British baby — anxious also to blot out the idea of 
the poor emaciated infants of Brixton, Camberwell, and 
Greenwich, by bringing home to my experience the 
opposite pole of infantile developement — I paid a visit, 
and sixpence, at Highbury Barn when the Baby Show 
opened. On entering Mr. Giovannelli's spacious hall, 
consecrated on ordinary occasions to the Terpsichorean 
art, I found it a veritable shrine of the Diva triformis. 

Immediately on entering I was solicited to invest 
extra coppers in a correct card, containing the names, 
weights, and — not colors ; they were all of one color, 
that of the ordinary human lobster — but weights, of 
the various forms of Wackford Squeers under twelve 
months, who were then and there assembled, like a lot 
of little fat porkers. It was, in truth, a sight to whet 
the appetite of an " annexed " Fiji Islander, or any 
other carnivorous animal. My correct card specified 
eighty " entries ;" but although the exhibition only 
opened at two o'clock, and I was there within an hour 



44 MYSTIC LONDON. 

after, I found the numbers up to loo quite full. The 
■ interesting juveniles were arranged within rails, draped 
with pink calico, all arrayed in " gorgeous attire," and 
most of them partaking of maternal sustenance. The 
mammas — all respectable married women of the work- 
ing class — seemed to consider the exhibition of their 
offspring by no means ififra dig.., and were rather pleased 
than otherwise to show you the legs and other points 
of their adipose encumbrances, Several proposed that 
I should test the weight, which I did tremulously, and felt 
relieved when the infant Hercules was restored to its 
natural protector. The prizes, which amounted in 
the gross to between two and three hundred pounds, 
were to be awarded in sums of lo/. and 5/., and some- 
times in the shape of silver cups, on what principle I 
am not quite clear ; but the decision was to rest with . 
a jury of three medical men and two " matrons." If 
simple adiposity, or the approximation of the human 
form divine to that of the hippopotamus, be the standard 
of excellence, there could be no doubt that a young 
gentleman named Thomas Chaloner, numbered 48 in 
the correct card, aged eight months, and weighing 
33lbs., would be be facile princeps, a prognostication 
of mine subsequently justified by the event. I must 
confess to looking with awe, and returning every now 
and then to look again, on this colossal child. At my 
last visit some one asked on what it had been fed. 
Shall I own that the demon of mischief prompted me 
to supplement the inquiry by adding, " Oil cake, or 
Thorley's Food for Cattle ?" 

On the score, I suppose, of mere peculiarity, my own 
attention — I frankly confess I am not a connoisseur — 
was considerable engrossed by " two little Niggers." 



A BABY S I/O IV. 45 

No doubt the number afterwards swelled to the orthodox 
" ten little Niggers." One was a jovial young" cuss" 
of eleven months — weighted at 29lbs., and numbered 62 
on the card. He was a clean-limbed young fellow, with a 
head of hair like a furze-bush, and his mother was quite 
untinted. I presume Paterfamilias was a fine colored 
gentleman. The other representative of the sons of 
Ham — John Charles Abdula, aged three months, weight 
2 libs., and numbered 76 — was too immature to draw upon 
my sympathies j since I freely acknowledge such 
specimens are utterly devoid of interest for me until 
their bones are of sufficient consistency to enable them to 
sit upright and look about as a British baby should. 
This particular infant had not a idea above culinary 
considerations. He was a very Alderman in embryo 
if there are any such things as colored Aldermen. Then 
there were twdns — that inscrutable visitation of Provi- 
dence, three brace of gemini. Triplets, in mercy to our 
paternal feelings, Mr. Giovannelli spared us. 

There was one noteworthy point about this particular 
exhibition. The mothers, at all events, got a good tour 
days' feed whilst their infantile furniture was " on view." 
I heard, sotto voce, encomiums on the dinner of the 
day confi.dingly exchanged between gushing young ma- 
trons, and I myself witnessed the disappearance of a 
decidedly comfortable tea, to say nothing of sundry pints 
of porter discussed sub rosd and free of expense to such 
as stood in need of sustenance ; and indeed a good many 
seemed to stand in need of it. Small wonder, when the 
mammas were so forcibly reminded by the highly-deve- 
loped British baby that, in Byron's own words, " our life 
is two-fold." 

It is certainly passing, not from the sublime to the 



^6 MYSTIC LONDON. 

ridiculous, but vice versa, yet it is noting another tes- 
timony to the growing importance of the British baby, 
if one mentions the growth of creches, or day-nurseries 
for working-men's children in the metropolis. Already 
an institution in Paris, they have been recently intro- 
duced into England, and must surely prove a boon to 
the wives of our working men. What in the world does 
become of the infants of poor women who are forced 
to work all day for their maintenance ? Is it not a 
miracle if something almost worse than "farming" — 
death from negligence, fire, or bad nursing — does not 
occur to them ? The good ladies who have founded, 
and themselves work these creches are surely meeting 
a confessed necessity. I paid a visit one day to 4, Bul- 
strode Street, w^here one of these useful institutions was 
in full work. I found forty little toddlers, some playing 
about a comfortable day-nursery, others sleeping in tiny 
cribs ranged in a double line along a spacious well-aired 
sleeping-room ; some too young for this, rocked in cosy 
cradles ; but all clean, safe, and happy. What needs it 
to say whether the good ladies who tended them wore 
the habit of St. Vincent de Paul, the poke-bonnet of the 
Puseyite "sister," or the simple garb of unpretending 
Protestantism .'' The thing is being done. The most 
helpless of all our population — the children of the work- 
ing poor — are being kept from the streets, kept from 
harm, and trained up to habits of decency, at 4, Bul- 
strode Street, Marylebone Lane. Any one can go and 
see it for himself ; and if he does — if he sees, as I did, 
the quiet, unostentatious work that is there being done 
for the British baby, " all for love and nothing for re- 
ward " — I shall be very much surprised if he does not 



A NIGHT IN A BAKEHOUSE. 4y 

confess that it is one of the best antidotes imaginable to 
baby-farming, and a sight more decorous and dignified 
than any Baby Show that could possibly be imagined. 



CHAPTER VII. 

A NIGHT IN A BAKEHOUSE. 

A LARMED at the prospect of " a free breakfast 
table " in a sense other than the ordinary one — 
that is, a breakfast table which would be minus the 
necessary accompaniment of bread, or the luxury of 
French rolls — I resolved to make myself master, so far 
as might be possible, of the pros and cons of the ques- 
tion at issue between bakers and masters at the period 
of the anticipated strike some years ago. I confess to 
having greatly neglected the subjects of strikes. I had 
attended a few meetings of the building operatives ; but 
the subject w-as one in which I myself was not personally 
interested. I am not likely to want to build a house, 
and might manage my own little repairs while the strike 
lasted. But I confess to a leaning for the staff of life. 
There are sundry small mouths around me, too, of quite 
disproportionate capacities in the way of bread and but 
ter, to say nothing at all of biscuits, buns, and tartlets. 
The possibility of having to provide for an impending 
state of siege, then, was one that touched me immedia- 
tely and vitally. Should I, before the dreaded event, 
initiate the wife of my bosom in the mysteries of bread 
baking? Should I commence forthwith a series of prac- 
tical experiments within the limited confines of my 



48 MYSTIC LONDON. 

kitchen oven ? To j^revent the otherwise inevitable 
heaviness and possible ropiness in my loaves of the 
future, some such previous process would certainly have 
to be adopted. But, then, in order to calculate the prob- 
abilities of the crisis, an examination of the status in 
quo was necessary. Having a habit of going to head- 
quarters in such questions, I resolved to do so on the 
present occasion ; so I took my hat, and, as Sam Slick 
says, " I off an' out." 

The actual head-quarters of the men I found to be at 
the Pewter Platter, White Lion Street, Bishopsgate. 
Thither I adjourned, and, after drinking the conven- 
tional glass of bitter at the bar, asked for a baker. One 
came forth from an inner chamber, looking sleepy, as 
bakers always look. In the penetralia of the parlor 
which he left I saw a group of floury comrades, the 
prominent features of the gathering being depression and 
bagatelle. By my comatose friend I was referred to the 
Admiral Carter, in Bartholomew Close, where the men's 
committee sat daily at four. The society in front of the 
bar there was much more cheerful than that of the 
Pew^ter Platter, and the bakers were discussing much 
beer, of which they hospitably invited me to partake. 
Still I learned little of their movements, save that they 
were to a man resolved to abide by the now familiar 
platform of work from four to four, higher wages, and 
no Sunday bakings. These were the principal features 
of the demands, the sack money and perquisites being 
confessedly subsidiary. Nauseated as the public was 
and is with strikes, there are certain classes of the com- 
munity wnth whom it is disposed to sympathize ; and 
certainly one of those classes is that of journeymen 
bakers. Bread for breakfast we must have, and rolls 



A NIGHT IN A BAKEHOUSE. 4g 

we should like ; but we should also like to have these 
commodities with as little nightwork as possible on the 
part of those who produce them. The " Appeal to the 
Public " put torth by the Strike Committee on the 
evening of the day concerning which I write was, per- 
haps, a trifle sensational ; but if there was any truth in 
it, such a state of things demanded careful investigation 
— especially if it was a fact that the baker slept upon the 
board where the bread was made, and mingled his 
sweat and tears with the ingredients of the staff of life. 
Pardonably, I hope, I wished to eat bread without baker 
for my breakfast ; but how could I probe this dreadful 
problem ? I had it — by a visit to the bakehouse of my 
own baker, if possible, during the hours of work. 

So I set out afresh after supper, and was most oblig- 
ingly received by the proprietor of what one may well 
take as a typical West-end-shop — neither very large nor 
very small — what is graphically termed a " snug " con- 
cern with a good connection, doing, as the technical 
phrase goes, from sixteen to twenty sacks a week. The 
resources of this establishment were at once placed at 
my disposal for the night. Now, the advantage of con- 
ferring with this particular master was, that he was not 
pig-headed on the one hand, nor unduly concessive, as 
he deemed some of his fellow-tradesmen to be, on the 
other. He did not consider a journeyman baker's berth 
a bed of roses, or his remuneration likely to make him 
a millionaire ; but neither did he lose sight of the fact 
that certain hours must be devoted to work, and a limit 
somewhere placed to wage, or the public must suffer 
through the employer of labor by being forced to pay 
higher prices. The staff of this particular establish- 
ment consisted of four men at the following wages : A 

d 



50 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



foreman at 281. and a second hand at i<ds. a week, bolt 
of whom were outsiders ; while, sleepxg on the prem- 
ises, and at the time of my arrival, buried in the arms of 
Morpheus, were a third hand, at i6i"., and a fourth, at 
\2.s. Besides these wages they had certain perquisites, 
such as bread, butter, sugar, flour, sack-money, yeast- 
money, &c. ; and the master, moreover, took his ade 
quate share of day-work. He was seated outside his 
shop, enjoying the cool breezes, not of evening, but of 
midnight, when I presented myself before his astonished 
gaze. His wife and children had long since retired. 
The foreman and second " hand " had not arrived \ the 
third and fourth " hands " were, as I said, sweetly sleep- 
ing, in a chamber on the basement, well out of range of 
the bakehouse, to which, like a couple of conspirators, 
we descended. It was not exactly the spot one would 
have selected for a permanent residence if left free to 
choose. It was, perhaps, as Mr. Dickens' theatrical 
gentleman phrased it, pernicious snug ; but the ventila- 
tion was satisfactory. There were two ovens, which 
certainly kept the place at a temperature higher than 
might have been agreeable on that hot September night. 
Kneading troughs were ranged round the walls, and in 
the centre, like an altar-tomb, was the fatal " board " 
where, however, I sought in vain for the traces of per- 
spiration or tears. All was scrupulously clean. In 
common phrase, you might have " eaten your dinner " 
off any portion of it. 

Soon after midnight the outsiders turned in, first the 
second hand and then the foreman, and, plunging into 
the " Black Hole," made their toilettes du soir. Then 
active operations commenced forthwith. In one com- 
partment of the kneading-trough was the "sponge," 



A NIGHT IN A BAKEHOUSE. 51 

which had been prepared by the foreman early in the 
evening, and which now^, having properly settled, was 
mixed with the flour for the first batch, and left to 
"prove."' The process of making the dough occupied 
until about one o'clock, and then followed two hours of 
comparative tranquillity, during which the men adjourned 
to the retirement of certain millers' sacks hard by, which 
they rolled up cleverly into extempore beds, and seemed 
to prefer to the board. The proving takes about two 
hours, but varies with the temperature. If the dough is 
left too long, a sour batch, or a " pitch in," is the result. 
It is then cut out, weighed, and " handed up ; " after 
which it stands while the dough for the second batch 
is being made, and those fatal rolls, around which so 
much of this contest is likely to turn, are being got for- 
ward. It must be understood that I am here describ- 
ing what took place in my typical bakehouse. Proceed- 
ings will, of course, vary in details according to the 
neighborhood, the season, and other circumstances. 
This makes, as my informant suggested, the race of 
bakers necessarily in some degree a varium atque muta- 
bele genius, whom it is difficult to bind by rigid " hard 
and fast *' lines. The first batch is in the oven at four, 
and is drawn about 5.30. During the intervals there 
has been the preparation of fancy bread and the "getting 
off " of the rolls. Then the " cottage " batch is moulded 
and got off, and comes out of the oven at eight. From 
three o'clock up to this hour there has been active work 
enough for everybody, and I felt myself considerably in 
the way, adjourning ever and anon to the master's 
snuggery above stairs to note down my experiences. As 
for the men, they must have fancied that I was an es- 
caped lunatic, with harmless eccentricities ; and the 



^2 MYSTIC LONDON. 

fourth hand, who was young, gazed at me all night with 
a fixed and sleepy glare, as though on his guard lest I 
should be seized with a refractory fit. At eight the close 
atmosphere of the bakehouse was exchanged for the 
fresh morning breeze by three out of the four hands, 
who went to deliver the bread. The foreman remained 
with the master to work at " small goods " until about 
one, when he prepares the ferment for the next night's 
baking. All concerned can get their operations over 
about one or half-past one j so that, reckoning them to 
begin at half-past twelve, and deducting two hours of 
" sweat and tears " from one to three, when they can 
sleep if they will, there are some eleven hours of active 
labor. After the delivery of the bread is over, it should 
be mentioned, each man has about half an hour's bake- 
house work in the way of getting coals, cleaning biscuit 
tins, brushing up, &c. When this is done, all, with the 
exception of the foreman, who will have to look in and 
make the sponge at eight p.m., are free until the com- 
mencement of their most untimely work at midnight. 

On Sunday, the work in this particular bakehouse is 
comparatively nil. The ovens have to be started on 
Sunday morning \ but this the master does himself, and 
puts in the ferment, so that there is only the sponge to 
be made in the evening — a brief hour's job, taken on 
alternate Sundays by the foreman and the secondhand. 
The " undersellers," my informant told me, made large 
sums by Sunday bakings, often covering their rent by 
them, so that their abandonment would be a serious 
question ; but there was little in the way of Sabbath- 
breaking in my typical bakehouse. As there were no 
Sunday bakings, Saturday was a rather harder day than 
others, there being a general scrub-up of the premises. 



A NIGHT IN A BAKEHOUSE. p^ 

The work, my informant thought, could be condensed 
by judicious co-operation, and the "four to four" rule 
might be adopted in some establishments, but by no 
means in all — as, for instance, where there was a 
speciahty for rolls and fancy bread. It seems, as usual, 
that the difficulties thicken, not about the necessaries, 
but about the luxuries and kickshaws of life. The 
master relieved my immediate fears by saying that he 
scarcely imagined matters would come to a crisis. 
There was this difference between the building and the 
baking trades, that all the master bakers had been jour- 
neymen themselves, and were thus able to sympathize 
widi the men's difficulties. They were not, he seemed 
to think, disposed to haggle over a few shillings ; but he 
added, " This is not a question of labor against capital 
only, but of labor against capital plus labor. I could," 
he said, "if my men left me on the 21st, make bread 
enough myself to supply all my customers, only they 
would have to fetch it for themselves." 

Thus my worst fears were relieved. If it only came 
to going out for my loaf, and even foregoing French 
rolls, I could face that like a man ; so I paced the streets 
gaily in the morning air and arrived home safely some 
time after the milk, and about the same hour as those 
rolls themselves whose hitherto unguessed history I had 
so far fathomed by my brief experience in the bake- 
house. 



24 MYSTIC LONDON. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A LONDON SLAVE MARKET. 

n^IIERE is a story called " Travellers' Wonders " in 
-*- that volume which used to be the delight of our 
childhood, when the rising generation was more easily 
amused, and not quite so wide-awake as at present. 
The point of the narrative is, that a facetious old gentle- 
man named Captain Compass beguiles a group of juve- 
niles — who mast have been singularly gullible even for 
those early days — by describing in mysterious and alien- 
sounding terms the commonest home objects, such as 
coals, cheese, butter, and so on. It would almost seem 
as though Hood must have been perpetrating a kindred 
joke upon grown-up children when he wrote the lines — 

It's O to be a slave 

Along with the barbarous Turk, 
Where woman has never a soul to save, 

If this is Christian Work ! 

Was he aware that here, in the heart of Christian Lon- 
don, without going farther east than Bethnal Green, 
there had existed from time immemorial, as there exists 
still, a genuine Slave Market ? Such there is, and ac- 
tually so named ; less romantic, indeed, than that we 
read of in " Don Juan," or used to see on the Adelphi 
boards in the drama of the " Octoroon " — but still in- 
teresting in its way to those who have a penchant for 
that grotesque side of London life where the sublime 
and the ridiculous sometimes blend so curiously. 



A LONDON SLAVE MARKET. re 

With only the vague address of Bethnal Green, and 
the date of Tuesday morning, to guide me, I set out for 
Worship Street PoHce Court, thinking it possible to 
gain some further particulars from the police. I found 
these functionaries civil, indeed, but disposed to observe 
even more than official reticence about the Slave 
Market. They told me the locality precisely enough, 
but were even more vague as to the hour than my own 
impressions. In fact, the sum of what I could gain 
from them was, in slightly Hibernian language, that 
there was nothing to see, and I could see it any time on 
a Tuesday morning when I chose to go down White 
Street, Bethnal Green. Leaving the Court and inquir- 
ing my route to White Street, I found that it ran off to 
the right some way down the Bethnal Green Road from 
Shoreditch Station. Having turned out of the main 
thoroughfare, you proceed down one of those character- 
istic East End streets where every small householder 
lives behind an elaborate bright green door with por- 
tentous knocker, going on until an arch of the Great 
Eastern Railway spans the road. Arriving at this point 
any time between the hours of eight and half-past nine 
on a Monday or Tuesday morning, you have no need to 
be told that this is the East London Slave Market — 
supposing you knew such a thing as a slave market was 
to be seen in East London at all. 

There was, indeed, nothing resembling Byron's graph- 
ic description in " Don Juan." Our English slaves 
were all apparently of one nation, and there were no 
slave merchants. The hundred young ladies and gen- 
tlemen, of all ages from seven to seventeen, were, as 
they would have expressed it, " on their own hook." 
Ranged under the dead brick wall of the railway arch, 



56 MYSTIC LONDON. 

there was a generally mouldy appearance about them. 
Instead of a picturesque difference of color, there was 
on every visage simply a greater or less degree of that 
peculiar neutral tint, the unmistakable, unlovely hue of 
London dirt. In this respect, too, they differed from 
the fresh country lads and lasses one sees at a hiring in 
the North. They were simply male and female City 
Arabs, with that superabundant power of combining 
business and pleasure which characterizes their race. 
The young gentlemen, in the intervals of business — and 
it seemed to be all intervals and no business — devoted 
themselves to games at buttons. Each of the young ladies 
— I am afraid to say how young — had her cavalier, and 
applied herself to very pronounced flirtation. The lan- 
guage of one and all certainly fulfilled the baptismal 
promise of their sponsors, if the poor little waifs ever 
had any — for it was " very vulgar tongue " indeed ; and 
there was lots of it. The great sensation of the morn- 
ing was a broken window in an unoffending tradesman's 
shop — a far from unusual occurrence, as I learnt from 
the sufferer. This led to a slave hunt on the part of 
the single policeman who occasionally showed himself 
to keep as quiet as might be the seething mass of hu- 
manity ; and the young lady or gentleman who was 
guilty of the damage was " off market " for the morn- 
ing — while the suffering tradesman was assailed with a 
volley of abuse, couched in strongest Saxon, for meekly 
protesting against the demolition of his window-pane. 

The scene was most characteristic — very unlike the 
genteel West End Servants' Registry, where young 
ladies and gentlemen's gentlemen saunter in to find 
places with high wages and the work " put out." It 
was on Tuesday morning, and a little late in the day, 



A LONDON SLAVE MARKET. r; 

that I timed my visit ; and I was informed that the 
Market was somewhat flat. Certainly, one could not 
apply to it the technicalities of the Stock Exchange, and 
say that the little boys were " dull," or girls, big or little, 
"inactive ;" but early on a Monday morning is, it ap- 
pears, the time to see the Slave Market in full swing. 
Strangely enough, so far as I could judge, it was all 
slaves and no buyers — or, rather, hirers. I did not see 
the symptom of a bargain being struck, though I was 
informed that a good many small tradesmen do patron- 
ize the Market, for shop-boys, nurse-girls, or household 
drudges. I do not know whether my appearance was 
particularly attractive ; but the number of offers I 
received from domestics of all kinds would have suf- 
ficed to stock half-a-dozen establishments. "Want a 
boy, sir ? " " A girl for the childer, sir ? " said the 
juveniles, while the offers of the adult ladies were more 
emphatic and less quotable. All, of course, was mere 
badinage, or, as they would have called it, " chaff," and 
it was meant good-humoredly enough ; though, had I 
been a legitimate hirer, I do not know that I should have 
been tempted to add to my household from this 
source. Indeed, there were some not exactly pleasant 
reflections cast on the Slave Market by those whom I 
c«^nsulted as to its merits. It was not unusual, I was 
lold, for slaves who were hired on a Monday to turn up 
again on Tuesday morning, either from incompatibility 
of temper on the part of domestic and superior, or from 
other causes unexplained. Tuesday morning is, in fact, 
to a large extent, the mere residuum either of Monday's 
unhired incapables, or of "returns." And yet as I 
looked around, I saw — as where does not one see — ? 
some young fair faces ; girls who might have played 



^8 MYSTIC LONDON: 

with one's little children all the better because they 
were nearly children themselves j and boys of preter- 
natural quickness, up to any job, and capable of being 
useful — ay, and even ornamental— members of society, 
if only that dreadful Bethnal Green twang could have 
been eradicated. The abuse of the mother-tongue on the 
part even of these children was simply frightful. If 
this were so in their playful moods, what — one could 
not help thinking — would it be if any dispute arose on 
a contested point of domestic economy : as, for in- 
stance, the too rapid disappearance of the cold mutton, 
or sudden absence of master's boots ? 

There was a garrulous cobbler whose stall bordered 
on the Market, and his panacea for all the evils 
the Slave Market brought witli it was the London 
School Board. "Why don't the officers come down, 
and collar some of them youngsters, sir ? " Why, in- 
deed ? At present the Slave Market is undoubtedly a 
nuisance ; but there is no reason why, under proper 
police supervision, it should not become a local con- 
venience. The ways of East London differ in all respects 
from those of the West, and Servants' Registries would 
not pay. Masters and Servants are alike too poor to ad- 
vertise ; and there seems to be no reason why the Slave 
Market, under a changed name, and with improved 
regulations, may not as really supply a want as the 
country " hirings " do. The Arab, at present, is not to 
be trusted with too much liberty. Both male and fe- 
male have odd Bedouin ways of their own, requiring 
considerable and judicious manipulation to mould them 
to the customs of civilized society. The respectable 
residents, tired of the existing state of things, look not 
unreasonably, as ratepayers, to the School Board to 



TEA AND EXPERIENCE. ^o 

thin down iJie children, and the police to keep the 
adults in order. Under such conditions the Bethnal 
Green Slave Market may yet become a useful institu- 
tion. 



CHAPTER IX. 

TEA AND EXPERIENCE. 

T WAS walking the other day in one of the pleasant 
western suburbs, and rashly sought a short cut 
back, when, as is generally the case, I found that the 
longer w^ould have been much the nearer way home. Be- 
fore I knew it, I was involved in the labyrinths of that re- 
gion, sacred to washerwomen and kindred spirits, 
known as Kensal New Town ; and my further progress 
was barred by the intervention of the Paddingtcn Canal, 
which is spanned at rare intervals in this locality by 
pay-bridges, to the great discomfort of the often impe- 
cunious natives. There was not even one of these at 
hand, or my half-penny would have been paid under 
protest ; so I had to wander like a lost sprite among 
the net-work of semi-genteel streets that skirt that most 
ungenteel thoroughfare, the Kensal New Town Road, 
and forthwith I began to find the neighborhood papered 
with placards, announcing a "Tea and Experience 
Meeting" at a local hall, under the presidency of the 
Free Church pastor, for the following Monday evening. 
Bakers' shops bristled with the handbills, and they 
studded the multitudinous pork butchers' windows in 
juxtaposition with cruel-looking black puddings and 



6o MYSTIC LONDON. 

over-fat loin chops. I determined I would go, if not to 
the tea, certainly to the " Experience," for I like novel 
experiences of all kinds : and this would certainly be 
new, whether edifying or not. 

I got at length out of the labyrinth, and on the fol- 
lowing Monday ventured once more within its mazes, 
though not exactly at six o'clock, which was the hour 
appointed for the preliminary experience of tea. I had 
experienced that kind of thing once or twice before, 
and never found myself in a position of such diffi- 
culty as on those occasions. In the first place I do not 
care about tea when it is good, but loathe it when 
boiled in a washhouse copper, and poured out from a 
large tin can, of M^iich it tastes unpleasantly. But 
then again the quantity as well as the quality of the 
viands to be consumed was literally too much for me. 
I might have managed one cup of decidedly nasty tea, 
or what passes muster for such, but not four or five, 
which I found to be the minimum. I could stomach, or 
secretly dispose of in my pockets, a single slice of lead- 
en cake or oleaginous bread and butter; but I could 
not do this with multitudinous slabs of either. I never 
went to more than one tea-meeting where I felt at home, 
and that was at the Soire'e Suisse, which takes place 
annually in London, where pretty Helvetian damsels 
brew the most fragrant coffee and hand round delicious 
little cakes, arrayed as they are in their killing national 
costume and chattering in a dozen different patois. I 
had a notion that tea at Kensal New Town would be 
very much less eligible, so I stopped away. Perhaps I 
was prejudiced. The tea might have been very different 
from what I expected. The experiences certainly were. 

I got there about half-past seven, having allowed an 



TEA AND EXPERIENCE, 6 1 

interval of an hour and a half, which I thought would 
be sufficient for the most inveterate tea-drinker, even 
among the Kensal Town laundresses, should such hap- 
pen to be present. I took the precaution, however, of 
bespeaking a lad of fifteen to accompany me, in case 
any of the fragments of the feast should yet have to be 
disposed of, since I knew his powers to equal the os- 
trich in stowing away eatables, especially in the lumpy 
cake line. Arrived at the hall, however, I found no 
symptoms of the tea save a steamy sort of smell and 
the rattle of the retreating cups and saucers. Whether 
'■'■ to my spirit's gain or loss," I had escaped the ban- 
quet, and yet got in good time for the subsequent ex- 
periences. 

A motherly- looking woman stood at the door, and 
gave me a cheery invitation to come in. She looked 
rather askance at my boy, but finding him properly 
convoyed by my sober self, she admitted him within 
the portal. A good many young gentlemen of a similar 
age were evidently excluded, and were regaling them- 
selves with pagan sports outside. The hall was par- 
tially filled with respectable-looking mechanics, their 
wives and families, there being more wives than me- 
chanics, and more families than either. Children 
abounded, especially babies in every stage of infantile 
development. Many were taking their maternal tea; 
and the boys and girls were got up in the most festive 
attire, the boys particularly shining with yellow soap. 
Most of the mammas wore perky hats, and many had 
follow-me-lads down the back, though all were exceed- 
ingly well-dressed and well-behaved, though evidently 
brimful of hilarity as well as cake and tea. 

At the end of the hall was the inevitable platform, 



62 MYSTIC LONDON. 

with chairs and a large cushion spread over the front 
rail for convenience of praying ; since the " experiences " 
were to be interspersed with sacred song and prayer. 
Two gentlemen — I use the term advisedly — mounted 
the rostrum, one a long-bearded, middle-aged man, in a 
frock coat, who was the pastor, and another, an aged 
minister, superannuated, as I afterwards discovered, 
and not altogether happy in his worldly lot. He was 
very old, grey-haired, and feeble, with a worn suit of 
clerical black, and a voluminous white tie. He sat 
humbly, almost despondingly, by the side of his young- 
er brother in the ministry, while the latter delivered a 
merry little opening address, hoping all had made a 
good tea; if not, there was still about half a can 
left. Nobody wanted any more , so they had a hymn 
from the " Sacred Songster," a copy of which volume I 
purchased in the hall for twopence halfpenny. The 
tune was a martial one, well sung by a choir of men and 
women to the accompaniment of a harmonium, and 
bravely borne part in, you may depend upon it, by the 
whole assembly, I verily believe, except the babies, and 
one or two of these put in a note sometimes. The 
hymn was called, " Oh, we are Volunteers ! " and was 
very Church-militant indeed, beginning thus : — 

Oh, we are volunteers in the army of the Lord, 
Forming into line at our Captain's word ; 
We are under marching orders to take the battle-field, 
And we'll ne'er give o'er the fight till the foe shall yield. 

Then came the chorus, repeated after every verse :— 

Come and join the army, the army of the Lord, 
Jesus is our Captain, we will rally at His word: 
Sharp will be the conflict with the powers of sin, 
But with such a leader we are sure to win. 



TEA AND EXPERIENCE. 63 

The poor old minister offered up a short prayer. The 
pastor read the ist Corinthians^ cliapter 13, and ex- 
phiined briefly what charity meant there ; adding that 
Liiis gathering was very Hke one of the Agapae of the 
early Christians — a remark I had not expected to hear 
in that assembly. Then there was another hymn, 
" Beautiful Land of Rest," when it did one good to hear 
the unction with which the second syllable of the refrain 
was given : — 

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 
Beautiful land of rest. 

After this the " Experiences " commenced in real 
earnest. Brothers and Sisters were exhorted to lay 
aside shyness and mount the platform. Of course no 
one would do so at first ; and the poor shaky old minis- 
ter had to come to the rescue. 

He told us, at rather too great length, the simple story 
of his life — how he was a farmer's son, and had several 
brothers "besides himself." He had to learn verses 
of the Bible for his father, which used to go against 
the grain, until at last, instead of being " a wicked 
boy," he took up religion on his own account. He 
began to be afraid that, if he died, he should go 
to " a bad place," and therefore started saying his 
prayers. His brother George used to push him 
over when he was praying half-dressed in the bed- 
room, or occasionally vary proceedings by stirring him 
up with a sweeping brush. At last he found out a quiet 
place under a haystack, and there retired to pray. The 
old man drew a perfect picture of the first prayer thus 
offered, and told us he could remember every little 



64 MYSTIC LONDON. 

detail of the spot, and the great oak tree spreading its 
branches over it. " Here I am," he said, " a poor old 
pilgrim on the bright side of seventy now, and yet I 
can remember it all. I say the ' bright ' side, for I 
know it is a bright home I am soon going to." Then 
he told us how God took his wife from him and all his 
worldly goods, and he was quite eloquent about the com- 
fort his rehgion was to him now as he went to his little 
lonely lodging. He drew next too truthful a picture of 
the state of things he saw around him in Kensal New 
Town — mothers with infants in their arms crowding the 
tavern doors ; and finished up with a story, of which he 
did not see the irrelevancy, about a fine lady going to 
the " theatre " and saying how much she had enjoyed the 
anticipation, then the play itself, and, lastly, the thought 
of it afterwards. ■ She was overheard by a faithful pastor, 
who told her she had omitted one detail. '^ No," she 
said, " I have told you all." " You have told us how 
you enjoyed the thoughts of the theatre, and the per- 
formance, and the recollection of it afterwards ; but you 
have not told us how you will enjoy the thoughts of it 
on your death-bed." Of course the " fine lady" was 
converted on the spot, as they always are in tracts ; and 
the good old fellow brought his long-winded narrative 
of experiences to an end by-and-bye, the pastor having 
omitted to pull his coat-tails, as he promised to do 
if any speaker exceeded the allotted time. " The 
people were certainly very attentive to hear him," and 
one man next my boy expressed his satisfaction by 
letting off little groans, like minute guns, at frequent in- 
tervals. 

Then another hymn was sung, " The Beautiful Land 
on High," which, by the way, is a favorite with the 



TEA AND EXPERIENCE. 65 

spiritualists at their " Face Seances^ I half expected 
to see a ghostly-looking visage peep out of some corner 
cupboard, as I had often done with my spiritual friends 
— that being another experience which I cultivate with 
considerable interest and curiosity. The hymn being 
over, a black-bearded but soft-voiced man, in a velveteen 
coat, got upon the platform, and told us how the chief 
delight of his life was at one time making dogs fight. 
When the animals were not sufficiently pugnacious of 
themselves, his habit was to construct an apparatus, 
consisting of a pin at the end of a stick, and so urge 
them to the combat until it proved fatal to one of them. 
It was, he said, dreadful work ; and now he consid- 
ered it the direct machination of Satan. Another favor- 
ite pursuit was interrupting the proceedings of open-air 
missionaries. One day after he had done so, he went 
home with a companion who had taken a tract from one 
of the missionaries. He had a quarrel with his " missis." 
"Not that missis sittin' there," he said, alluding to a 
smart lady in front, " but my first missis." In order to 
show his sulks against his missis, he took to reading the 
tract, and it soon made him cry. Then he went to 
chapel and heard a sermon on Lot's wife being turned 
into a pillar of salt. He was a little exercised by this, 
and saw the minister in the vestry, but soon fell back 
into bad habits again, singing canaries for \os. 6d. a side. 
As he was taking his bird out one Sunday morning, the 
bottom of the cage came out, and the canary escaped. 
This he looked upon as " God's work," since it caused 
him to go to chapel that morning. His conversion soon 
followed, and he applied to that circumstance, in a very 
apposite manner, the Parable of the Prodigal, conclud- 
ing with a stanza from the well-known hymn : — 

S 



66 MYSTIC LONDON. ' 

God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform. 

Another moustached man followed. He was ex- 
ceedingly well-dressed, though he told us he was only 
a common laborer. He had long given up his " 'art " 
to God, but to little purpose until he came to this chapel. 
" But there," he said, " down in that corner under the 
gas-lamp, I prayed for the first time. I prayed that 
God would take away my stony 'art and give me a 
'art of flesh, and renew a right sperrit within me." 
From that time he led a new life. His fellow-workmen 
began to sneer at the change, and said ironically they 
should take to going to chapel too. " I wish to God 
you would," was his reply. He described the personal in- 
fluence of the pastor upon him, which strengthened the 
good resolutions he had formed, and enabled him to 
say, " I will not let Thee go." 

I could not help thinking, as I listened to the simple, 
earnest words of the speaker, that here was an element 
the National Church is to apt to ignore. The Roman 
Catholic Church would seize hold upon that man, and 
put him in a working men's guild or confraternity. The 
Free Church found him work to do, and gave him a 
chief seat in the synagogue, and an opportunity of 
airing his " experiences " on a platform. Surely better 
either one or the other, than sotting his life at a public 
house or turning tap-room orator. He ended by crying 
shame upon himself for having put off the change until 
so late in life, and added a wish that all the laboring 
classes could see, as he had been brought to see, where 
their chief interest a3 well as happiness lay. 

A tall man from the choir followed, and was consider- 
ably more self-possessed than the other two speakers. 



TEA AND EXPERIENCE. 



67 



He told \ IS at the outset that he had been " a Chris- 
tian " for fourteen years. It was generally laid down 
as a rule, he said, that big men were good-tempered. 
He was not a small man ; but until he gave his heart to 
God he was never good-tempered. He had, for thirty 
two years, been brought up in the Church of England 
but had found no conversion there. He had no wish 
to speak against the Church, but such was the case. 
He wandered about a good deal in those years, from 
Roman Catholic to Old Methodist chapels ; but the 
latter settled him. He was attending a class meeting 
in Kensal New Town one night, and suddenly a deter- 
mination came over him that he would not sleep that 
night until he had kneeled down and prayed with his 
wife, though it would be the first time he had done so 
for thirty-two years. When it came to bedtime his 
courage failed him. He could not get into bed ; and 
he did not like to tell his wife why. " That," he said, 
" was the devil worritin' me," His wife said, " I know 
w^iat's the matter with you. You want to pray. We 
will see what we can do." His wife, he told us, was 
" unconverted,'' but still she " throwed open the door " 
on that occasion. He never knew happiness, he said, 
until he came to Jesus ; and he added, " Oh, I do love 
my Jesus," He often talked to his fellow-workmen 
about the state of their souls, and they asked him how 
it was he was so certain of being converted (a question, 
I fancy, others than they would like to have solved), 
and he answered them, " I feel it. I w^as uncomfort- 
able before ; and now I am happy. I don't w^onder so 
much at the old martyrs going boldly up to the stake, 
because I feel I could do anything rather than give up 
my Jesus." 



68 ^^yS TIC L OND ON. 

Hereupon the pastor, anticipating the departure of 
some of the assembly — for the clock was pointing to ten 
— announced a Temperance Meeting for the following 
Monday, and also said he should like the congregation 
to get up these meetings entirely on their own account, 
without any " clerical " element at all, and to make 
the Tea Meeting a " Free and Easy " in the best sense 
of the word. 

I went — shall I confess it ? — to the experience meet- 
ing rather inclined to scoff, and I stopped, if not alto- 
gether to pray, at least to think very seriously of the 
value of the instrumentality thus brought to bear on such 
intractable material as the Kensal New Town population. 
The more cumbrous, even if more perfect or polished, 
machinery of the Established Church has notoriously 
failed for a long time to affect such raw material j and 
if it is beginning to succeed, it is really by " taking a 
leaf out of the book " of such pastors as the one whose 
Tea-and-Experience Meeting I had attended. " Palmam 
qui meruit fer at r 

Stiggins element I must, in all justice, say there was 
none. The pastor was a simple but a refined and 
gentlemanly man ; so was the poor broken old min- 
ister. There was no symptom of raving or rant ; no 
vulgarity or bad taste. A gathering at a deanery or an 
Episcopal palace could not have been more decorous,and 
I doubt if the hymns could have been sung as heartily. 
There was as little clerical starch as there was of the 
opposite element. Rubbing off the angles of character 
was one of the objects actually proposed by the pastor 
as the result of these gatherings j and I really felt as 
though a corner or two had gone out of my constitution. 
If a man is disposed to be priggish, or a lady exclu- 



SUNDAY LINNET-SINGING, 60 

sive, in religious matters, I would recommend the one 
or the other to avail themselves of the next opportunity 
to attend a Tea-and-Experience Meeting at Kensal New 
Town. 



CHAPTER X. 

SUNDAY LINNET-SINGING. 

nPHERE is something very Arcadian and un-Cockney- 
^ like in the idea of linnet-singing in Lock's Fields. 
Imagination pictures so readily the green pastures and 
the wild bird's song, and Corydon with his pipe and his 
Phyllis, that it seems a pity to disabuse that exquisite 
faculty of our nature so far as to suggest that the linnets 
of which we speak are not wild, but tam.e and caged, 
and the fields very much less rural than those of Lin- 
coln's Inn. This was the announcement that drew me 
to the New Kent Road on a recent Sunday morning to 
hear what poor Cockney Keats called the " tender- 
legged linnets : " " Bird-singing. — A match is made 
between Thomas Walker (the Bermondsey Champion) 
and William Hart (Champion of Walworth) to sing two 
linnets, on Sunday, for 2/. a side ; birds to be on the 
nail precisely at two o'clock ; the host to be referee. 
\os. is now down j the remainder by nine this evening, 
at the Jolly Butchers, Rodney Road, Lock's Fields. 
Also a copper kettle will be sung for on the same day 
by six pairs of linnets ; first pair up at half-past six 
o'clock in the evening. Any person requiring the said 
room for matches, &c., on making application to the 
host, will immediately be answ^ered." 



70 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



Rodney Road, be it known, is anything but a roman- 
tic thoroughfare, leading out of the New Kent Road, a 
little way from the Elephant and Castle ; and the cara- 
vanserai bearing the title of the Jolly Butchers is an 
unpretending beer-shop, with no outward and visible 
signs of especial joviality. On entering I met mine 
host, rubicund and jolly enough, who politely pioneered 
me upstairs, when I reported myself as in quest of th^ 
linnets. The scene of contest I found to be a largis| 
room, where some twenty or thirty most un-Arcadiaiv 
looking gentlemen were already assembled, the only 
adjunct at all symptomatic of that pastoral district being 
their pipes, at which they were diligently puffing. The 
whole of the tender-legged competitors, both for the 
money and the copper kettle, were hanging in little 
square green cages over the fireplace ; and the one idea 
uppermost in my mind was how well the linnets must be 
seasoned to tobacco smoke if they could sing at- all in 
the atmosphere which those Corydons were so carefully 
polluting. Corydon, besides his pipe, had adopted nuts 
and beer to solace the tedium of the quarter of an hour 
that yet intervened before the Bermondsey bird and its 
Walworth antagonist were to be " on the nail ; " and 
iDver and anon fresh Corydons kept dropping in, until 
gome fifty or sixty had assembled. They were all of 
one type. There was a " birdiness " discernible on the 
outer man of each ; for birdiness, as well as horseyness, 
writes its mark on the countenance and the attire. In 
the latter department there was a proclivity to thick 
pea-jackets and voluminoys white comforters round the 
neck, thvough the day was springlike and the room 
stuffy. The talk was loud but not boisterous, and 
garnished with fewer elegant flowers of speech than one 



SUNDA V LINNE l-SINGING. 7 1 

would have expected. Five minutes before two the 
non-competing birds were carefully muffled up in pocket- 
handkerchiefs, and carried in their cages out of earshot, 
lest their twitterings might inspire the competing min- 
strels. Bermondsey and Walworth alone occupied the 
nails. Scarcely any bets were made. They seemed an 
impecunious assemblage, gathered for mere sport. One 
gentleman did, indeed, offer to stake " that 'ere blowsy 
bob," as though a shilling in his possession were a 
rarity of which his friends must be certainly aware. 
What was the occult meaning of the epithet "Blowsy" 
I could not fathom, but there were no takers ; and, 
after the windows had been opened for a few minutes 
to clear the atmosphere, they were closed again ; the 
door locked; the two markers took their place at a 
table in front of the birds, with bits of chalk in their 
hands ; mine host stood by as referee in case of dis- 
putes j time was called ; and silence reigned supreme 
for a quarter of an hour, broken only by the vocal per- 
formances of the Bermondsey and Walworth champions 
respectively. If a hapless human being did so far for- 
get himself as to cough or tread incontinently upon a 
nutshell, he was called to silence with curses not loud 
but deep. 

The Walworth bird opened the concert with a brilliant 
solo by way of overture, which was duly reported by the 
musical critic in the shape of a chalk line on the table. 
The length of the effusion did not matter ; a long aria, 
or a brilliant but spasmodic cadenza, each counted one, 
and one only. The Bermondsey bird, heedless of the 
issue at stake, devoted the precious moments to eating, 
emitting nothing beyond a dyspeptic twitter which didn't 
count ; and his proprietor stood by me evidently cha- 



y2 MYSTIC LONDON, 

grined, and perspiring profusely, either from anxiety or 
superfluous attire. Nearly half the time had gone by 
before Bermondsey put forth its powers. Meanwhile, 
Walworth made the most of the opportunity, singing in 
a manner of which I did not know linnets were capable. 
There were notes and passages in the repertoire of 
Walworth which were worthy of a canary. The bird no 
doubt felt that the credit of home art was at stake, and 
sang with a vigor calculated to throw foreign feathered 
artistes into the shade. Bermondsey evidently sang best 
after dinner, so he dined like an alderman ; yet dined, 
alas ! not wisely, but too well, or rather too long. Then 
he sang, first, a defiant roulade or so, as much as to 
say, " Can you beat that, Walworth ? " pausing, with his 
head wickedly on one side, for a reply. That reply was 
not wanting, for Walworth was flushed with success ; 
and one could not help regretting ignorance of bird- 
language so as to gather exactly what the reply meant. 
Then came a protracted duet between the two birds, 
which was the piece de resistance of the whole perform- 
ance. The silence became irksome. I could not help 
congratulating myself on the fact that no Corydon had 
brought his Phyllis ; for Phyllis, I am sure, would not 
have been able to stand it. Phyllis, I feel certain, 
would have giggled. We remained mute as mice, 
solemn as judges. The ghost of a twitter was hailed 
with mute signs of approval by the backers of each bird ; 
but a glance at the expressive features of the host 
warned the markers that nothing must be chalked down 
that did not come up to his idea of singing. Had the 
destinies of empires hung upon his nod he could scarcely 
have looked more oracular. But Walworth could afford 
to take matters easily now. For the last five minutes 



^ UN DA Y LLWVE 7 -SI A 'GING. 7 , 

the Bermondsey bird did most of the music \ still it was 
a hopeless case Success was not on the cards. By- 
and-bye, time was again called. Babel recommenced, 
and the result stood as follows : 

Walworth 3 score 18 

Bermondsey i score 10 

It was an ignominious defeat truly; and, had one 
been disposed to moralize, it had not been difficult to 
draw a moral therefrom. It was not a case of " no 
song, no supper ; " but of supper — or, rather, dinner — 
and no song. Bermondsey had failed in the artistic 
combat, not from lack of powers, as its brilliant part in 
the duet and its subsequent soli proved, but simply from 
a Sybaritic love for creature comforts. I ventured to 
suggest it might have been expedient to remove the 
seed, but was informed that, under those circumstances, 
the creature — its proprietor called it an uglier name — 
would not have sung at all. The remarkable part of 
the business to me was that they did sing at the proper 
time. They had not uttered anything beyond a twitter 
until silence was called, and from that moment one or 
the other was singing incessantly. I suppose it was the 
silence. I have noticed not only caged birds, but chil- 
dren — not to speak ungallantly of the fair sex — gener- 
ally give tongue most freely when one is silent, and pre- 
sumably wants to keep so. 

The contest, however, was over, the stakes paid, and 
Corydon sought his pastoral pipe again — not without 
beer. It was a new experience, but not a very exciting 
one — to me, at least. It evidently had its attractions 
for the very large majority of attendants. In fact, Rod- 
ney Road is generally a "birdy" neighborhood. Its 



74 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



staple products, to judge by the shops, seemed birds 
and beer. I was much pressed by mine host to stay 
for the evening entertainment, when six birds were to 
sing, and the attendance would be more numerous. As 
some five hours intervened I expressed regret at my 
inability to remain, reserving my opinion that five hours 
in Lock's Fields might prove the reverse of attractive, 
and Corydon in greater force might not have an agree- 
able effect on that already stuffy chamber. So I took 
myself off, wondering much, by the way, what strange 
association of ideas could have led any imaginative man 
to propose such an incongruous reward as a copper 
kettle by way of premium for linnet-singing. 



CHAPTER XI. 

A woman's rights debate. 

'T^HERE never was a time when, on all sorts of sub- 
^ jects, from Mesmerism to Woman's Rights, the 
ladies had so much to say for themselves. There is an 
ancient heresy which tells us that, on most occasions, 
ladies are prone to have the last word ; but certain it is 
that they are making themselves heard now. On the 
special subject of her so-called " Rights " the abstract 
Woman was, I know, prodigiously emphatic — how em- 
phatic, though, I was not quite aware, until having seen 
from the top of a City-bound omnibus that a lady, whom 
I will describe by the Aristophanic name of Praxagora, 
would lecture at the Castle Street Co-operative Insti- 



A WOMAN'S RIGHTS DEBATE. 



75 



tute. i went and co-operated so far as to form one of 
that lady's audience. Her subject — the " PoUtical Sta- 
tus of Women " — was evidently attractive, not only to 
what we used in our innocence to call the weaker sex, 
but also to those who are soon to have proved to them 
the fallacy of calling themselves the stronger. A goodly 
assemblage had gathered in the fine hall of the Co- 
operators to join in demolishing that ancient myth as to 
the superiority of the male sex. My first intention was to 
have reported verbatim or nearly so the oration of Prax- 
agora on the subject ; and if I changed my scheme it 
was not because that lady did not deserve to be report- 
ed. She said all that was to be said on the matter, and 
said it exceedingly well, too ; but when the lecture, 
which lasted fifty minutes, was over, I found it was to 
be succeeded by a debate ; and I thought more might 
be gained by chronicling the collision of opinion thence 
ensuing than by simply quoting the words of any one 
speaker, however eloquent or exhaustive. 

I own with fear and trembling — for it is a delicate, 
dangerous avowal — that, as a rule, I do not sympathize 
with the ladies who declaim on the subject of Woman's 
Rights. 1 do not mean to say I lack sympathy with 
the subject — I should like everybody to have their 
rights, and especially women — but they are sometimes 
asserted in such a sledge-hammer fashion, and the ladies 
who give them utterance are so prone to run large and be 
shrill-voiced that their very ph3^sique proves their claim 
either unnecessary or undesirable. I feel certain that 
in whatever station of domestic life those ladies may be 
placed, they would have their full rights, if not some- 
thing more ; and as for Parliamentary rights, I tremble 
for the unprotected males should such viragos ever com- 



76 



MYSTIC L ONDON. 



pass the franchise ; or, worse still, realize the ambition 
of the Ecclesiazusae of Aristophanes, and sit on the 
benches of St. Stephen's clad in the nether garments 
of the hirsute sex. There was nothing of that kind on 
Tuesday night. In manner and appearance our pres- 
ent Praxagora was thoroughly feminine, and, by her 
very quietude of manner, impressed me with a con- 
sciousness of power, and determination to use it. Her 
voice was soft and silvery almost as that of Miss Faith- 
full, herself ; and when, at the outset of her lecture, she 
claimed indulgence on the score of never having spoken 
in a public hall before, we had to press forward to the 
front benches to catch the modulated tones, and men 
who came clumping in with heavy boots in the course 
of the lecture were severely hushed down by stern- 
visaged females among the audience. 

Disclaiming connexion with any society, Praxagora 
still adopted the first personal plural in speaking of 
the doctrines and intentions of the down-trodden fe- 
males. " We " felt so and so ; " we " intended -to do 
this or that ; and certainly her cause gained by the ele- 
ment of mystery thus introduced, as well as by her own 
undoubted power of dealing with the subject. "When 
the " we " is seen to refer to the brazen-voiced ladies 
aforesaid, and a few of the opposite sex who appear to 
have changed natures with the gentle ones they cham- 
pion, that plural pronoun is the reverse of imposing, but 
the " we " of Praxagora introduced an element of awe, 
if only on the onine ignotum p7'o magnifico principle. 
In the most forcible way she went through the stock 
objections against giving women the franchise, and 
knocked them down one by one like so many ninepins. 
That coveted boon of a vote she proved to be at the 



A WOMAN'S RIGHTS DEBATE. yy 

basis of all the regeneration of women. She claimed 
that woman should have her share in making the laws 
by which she was governed, and denied the popular as- 
sertion that in so doing she would quit her proper 
sphere. In fact, v/e all went with her up to a certain 
point, and most of the audience beyond that point. For 
myself I confess I felt disheartened when, having dealt 
in the most consummate way with other aspects of the 
subject, she came to the religious phase, and begging 
the question that the Bible and religion discountenanced 
woman's rights, commenced what sounded to me like a 
furious attack on each. 

Now I happen to know — what perhaps those who 
look from another standpoint do not know — that this 
aggressive attitude assumed so unnecessarily by the 
advocates of woman's rights is calculated to keep back 
the cause more than anything else ; and matter and 
manner had been so much the reverse of hostile up to 
the moment she plunged incontinently into the religious 
question, that it quite took me by surprise. I have 
known scores of people who, when they came under 
vigorous protest to hear Miss Emily Faithfull on the 
same fertile subject, went away converted because they 
found no iconoclasm of this kind in her teaching. They 
came to scoff and stopped, not indeed to pray, but to 
listen very attentively to a theme which has so much to 
be said in its favor that it is a pity to complicate its ad- 
vocacy by the introduction of an extraneous and most 
difficult question. So it was, however ; with pale ear- 
nest face, and accents more incisive than before, Praxa- 
gora said if Bible and religion stood in the way of 
Woman's Rights, then Bible and religion must go. That 
was the gist of her remarks. I need not follow her in 



7 8 MYSTIC LONDON. 

detail, because the supplementary matter sounded more 
bitterly still ; and, had she not been reading from MS. 
I should have thought the lecturer was carried away by 
her subject ; but no, she was reading quite calmly what 
were clearly enough her natural and deliberate opinions. 
I said I was surprised at the line she took. Perhaps I 
ought scarcely to have been so, for she was flanked on 
one side by Mr. Bradlaugh, on the other by Mr. Hol- 
yoake ! but I never remember being so struck with a 
contrast as when at one moment Praxagora pictured 
the beauty of a well-regulated home, and the tender 
offices of woman towards the little children, and then 
shot off at a tangent to fierce invectives against the 
Bible and religion, which seemed so utterly uncalled 
for that no adversary who wanted to damage the cause 
could possibly have invented a more complete method 
of doing so. 

The lecture over, the chairman invited discussion, 
and a fierce little working man immediately mounted 
the platform, and took Praxagora to task for her injudi- 
cious onslaught. But, as usual, this gentleman was 
wildly irrelevant and carried away by his commendable 
zeal. Over and over again he had to be recalled to 
the question, until finally he set his whole audience 
against him, and had to sit down abruptly in the mid- 
dle of a sort of apotheosis of Moses — as far as I could 
hear — for his zeal outran his eloquence as well as his 
discretion, and rendered him barely audible. A second 
speaker followed, and though cordially sympathizing 
with the address, and tracing woman's incapacity to her 
state of subjugation, regretted that such a disturbing 
element as religion had been mixed up with a social 
claim. He considered that such a subject must inevi- 



A WOMAN'S RIGHTS DEBATE. 75 

tably prove an apple of discord. For this he was at 
once severely handled by Mr. Bradlaugh, who, consist- 
ently enough, defended the line Praxagora adopted to- 
wards the religious question, and justified the introduc- 
tion of the subject from the charge of irrelevance. He 
also deprecated the surprise which the last speaker had 
expressed at the excellent address of Praxagora, by 
pointing out that in America about one-third of the 
press were females, a fact which he attributed to the 
plan of Mixed Education. Then a new line was opened 
up by a speaker — it was as impossible to catch their 
names as to hear the stations announced by porters on 
the Underground Railway. He predicted that if women 
did get the franchise, Mr. Bradlaugh's " Temple " would 
be shut up in six months, as well as those of Messrs. 
Voysey and Conway and Dr. Perfitt. The ladies, he 
said, were swayed by Conventionalism and Priestcraft, 
and until you educated them, you could not safely give 
them the franchise. 

A youthful Good Templar mounted the rostrum, for 
the purpose of patting Praxagora metaphorically on the 
back, and also ventilating his own opinions on the 
apathy of the working man in claiming his vote. Then 
somebody got up and denied that the ladies were by 
nature theological. Their virtues were superior to 
those of men just as their voices were an octave high- 
er. He was for having a Moral Department of the 
State presided over by ladies. Only one lady spoke ; 
a jaunty young woman in a sailor's hat, who said that in 
religious persecutions men, not women, had been the 
persecutors ; and then Praxagora rose to reply. She 
first of all explained her position with regard to the 
Bible, which she denied having unnecessarily attacked. 



8o MYSTIC LONDON. 

The Bible forbade a woman to speak ; and, that being 
so, the Bible must stand on one side, for " we " were 
going to speak. That the highest intellects had been 
formed on Bible models she denied by instancing Shel- 
ley. If she thought that this movement was going to 
destroy the womanhood of her sex she would not move 
a finger for its furtherance. She only thought it would 
give a higher style of womanhood. As to women re- 
quiring to be educated before they would know how to 
use the franchise, she pointed triumphantly to the Gov- 
ernment which men had placed in power. It was sig- 
nificant, she said, that the first exercise of the working 
men's franchise had been to place a Conservative Gov- 
ernment in office. 

I daresay I am wrong, but the impression left on my 
mind by the discussion was that the liberty of thought 
and action claimed was the liberty of thinking as " we " 
think and doing what " 2^^^" want to have done — a 
process which has been before now mistaken for absolute 
freedom. Stripped of its aggressive adjuncts, Praxa- 
gora's advocacy of her main subject would be telling in 
the extreme from the fact of her blending such thorough 
womanliness of person, character and sentiment with 
such vigorous championship of a doctrine against which 
I do not believe any prejudice exists. Drag in the 
religious difficulty, however, and you immediately array 
against it a host of prejudices, whether reasonable 
ones or the reverse is not now the question. I am only 
concerned with the unwisdom of having called them 
into existence. I own I thought that Christianity had 
been the means of raising woman from her state of 
Oriental degradation to the position she occupies in 
civilized countries. But I was only there to listen, not 



AN OPEN-AIR TICHBORNE MEETING. 8 1 

to speak ; and I confess I came away in a divided 
frame of mind. I was pleased with the paper, but irri- 
tated to think that a lady, holding such excellent cards, 
should risk playing a losing game. 



CHAPTER XII. 

AN OPEN-AIR TICHBORNE MEETING. 

\ 1 rHEN Sydney Smith, from the depth of his bar- 
barian ignorance, sought to rise to the concep- 
tion of a Puseyite, he said in substance much as fol- 
lows : — " I know not what these silly people want, ex- 
cept to revive every obsolete custom which the common 
sense of mankind has allowed to go to sleep." Pusey- 
ism is not to our present purpose ; but Tichborne-ism is 
— for it has attained to the dignity of a veritable ism — 
and we may define it much after the same method, as an 
attempt, not; indeed, to revive the claims of, but to re- 
store to society a person, who, after a trial of unex- 
ampled length, was consigned by the verdict of a jury, 
and the consequent sentence of the Lord Chief Justice, 
to the possibly uncongenial retirement of Millbank 
Penitentiary. With the rights or wrongs of such an 
event I have simply nothing to do. I abandoned the 
Tichborne trial at an early stage in a condition of utter 
bewilderment ; and directly an old gentleman sought 
to buttonhole me, and argue that he must be the man, 
or he couldn't be the man, I made off, or changed the 
conversation as rapidly as I could. 
6 



g2 MYSTIC LONDON. 

But when the question had at length been resolved 
by wiser heads than mine, and when, too, I felt I could 
write calmly, with no fear of an action for contempt of 
court before my eyes, I confess that a poster announcing 
an open-air Tichborne meeting in Mr. Warren's cricket 
field, Notting Hill, was too fascinating for me. I had 
heard of such gatherings in provincial places and East 
End halls ; but this invasion of the West was breaking 
new ground. I would go ; in fine, I went. On the 
evening of an exceptionally hot July day, I felt there 
might be worse places than Mr. Warren's breezy cricket 
ground alongside Notting Barn Farm j so six o'clock, 
the hour when the chair was to be taken, found me at 
the spot — first of the outer world — and forestalled 
only by a solitary Tichbornite. How I knew that the 
gentleman in question deserved that appellation I say 
not ; but I felt instinctively that such was the case. 
He had a shiny black frock-coat on, like a well-to-do 
artizan out for a holiday, and a roll of paper protrud- 
ing from his pocket I rightly inferred to be a Tichborne 
petition for signature. As soon as we got on the 
ground, and I was enjoying the sensation of the crisp, 
well rolled turf beneath my feet, a man hove in sight 
with a table, and this attracted a few observers. A 
gentleman in a light coat, too, who was serenely gazing 
over the hedge at the Kensington Park Cricket Club in 
the next ground, was, they informed me, Mr. Guildford 
Onslow. The presiding genius of the place, however, 
was Mrs. Warren, who, arrayed in a gown of emerald 
green — as though she were attending a Fenian meet- 
ing — ^bustled about in a state of intense excitement un- 
til the greengrocer's cart, which was to serve as a ros- 
trum, had arrived. When this occurred, the table and 



AN OPEN-AIR TICHBORNE MEETING. 83 

half a dozen Windsor chairs were hoisted into it ; an- 
other table was arranged below the van, with the Tich- 
borne Petition outspread upon it ; and I fancied that 
arrangements were complete. 

Not so, however. The gentleman in the shiny coat 
and emerald green Mrs. Warren between them tin-tack- 
ed up a long scroll or " legend " along the rim of the 
van, consisting of the text from Psalm xxxv. 11 : — 
" False witnesses did rise up against me. They laid to 
my charge things that I knew not." The association of 
ideas was grotesque, I know, but really as Mrs. Warren 
and the shiny artisan were nailing this strip to the green- 
grocer's van, they put me very much in mind of a curate 
and a lady friend " doing decorations " at Christmas or 
Eastertide. Nor was this all. When the " strange de- 
vice " was duly tin-tacked, some workmen brought four 
long pieces of quartering, and a second strip of white 
calico with letters stuck on it was nailed to these ; and 
when the stalwart fellows hoisted it in air and tied the 
two centre pieces of wood to the wheels of the green- 
grocer's cart, I found that it consisted of the Ninth 
Commandment. The self-sacrificing carpenters were 
to hold — and did hold — the outside poles banner-wise 
during the entire evening ; and, with one slight excep- 
tion, this banner with the strange device. No. 2, formed 
an appropriate, if not altogether ornamental background 
for the greengrocer's van. Knots of people had gathered 
during these proceedings ; and I was confused to find 
that I was being generally pointed out as Mr, Onslow, 
that gentleman having retired to the privacy of Mr. 
Warren's neighboring abode. Later on I was taken for 
a detective, because, in my innocence, I withdrew ever 
and anon from the crowd, and, sitting on a verdurous 



84 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



bank, jotted down a note in my pocketbook ; but, this 
got me into such bad odor by-and-bye that I felt it 
better to desist, and trust to memory. Some of the 
smaller boys also averred that I was Sir Roger himself, 
but their youthful opinions were too palpably erroneous 
to carry weight. 

In due course the van was occupied by Mr. Onslow, 
the Rev. Mr. Buckingham (about whom I felt, of course, 
very curious), my shining artizan, and a few others. A 
thin-faced gentleman, whose name I could not catch, 
was voted to the chair, and announced to us that he 
should go on talking a while in order that Messrs. On- 
slow and Buckingham might "refresh," as they had 
each come from the country. This they did coram 
publico in the cart, while the chairman kept us amused. 
The wind, too, was blowing pretty freshly, and was 
especially hard on the Ninth Commandment, which gave 
considerable trouble to the holders of the props. It 
was directly in the teeth of the speaker, too — an arrange- 
ment which Mrs. Warren, in her zeal, had overlooked ; 
and it was decided by common consent to " reverse the 
meeting '* — that is, to turn the chairs of the speakers 
round, so that the Ninth Commandment was nowhere, 
and looked like an Egyptian hieroglyph, as the reversed 
letters showed dimly through the calico. The chairman 
eventually read to the meeting, which was now a toler. 
ably full one, the form of petition which was to serve as 
the single resolution of the evening. I was struck with 
this gentleman's departure from conventional legal 
phraseology on this occasion. Instead of naming the 
cause celebre " The Queen versus Castro" (it being writ- 
ten, as Sam Weller says, with a " wee") he termed it 
'* The Queen via Castro ! " The petition was as fol- 
lows : — 



AN OPEN-AIR riCHBORNE MEETING. gq 

" That in the trial at Bar in the Court of Queen's 
Bench, on an indictment of the Queen v. Castro, ajias 
Arthur Orton, alias Sir Roger Charles Doughty Tich- 
borne, Bart., for perjury, the jury, on the 28th day of 
February, 1874, brought in a verdict of guilty against 
him, declaring him to be Arthur Orton, and he was sen- 
tenced to fourteen years' penal servitude, which he is now 
undergoing. 

" That your petitioners have reason to know and be- 
lieve and are satisfied, both from the evidence produced 
at the trial and furnished since, and from their own 
personal knowledge that he is not Arthur Orton. 

" That though 280 witnesses were examined at the 
said trial in his behalf, a very large number more, as 
your petitioners have been informed and believe, were 
also ready to be examined, but that funds were not 
available for the purpose, the defendant having been 
entirely dependent on the voluntary subscriptions of the 
public for his defence. 

" That your petitioners submit that such a large 
number as 280 witnesses, most of whom gave positive 
evidence that the defendant was not Arthur Orton, and 
whose testimony in two instances only was questioned 
in a court of law — as against about 200 witnesses for 
the prosecution, whose evidence was chiefly of a nega- 
tive character — was of itself enough to raise a doubt in 
the defendant's favor, of which doubt he ought to have 
had the benefit, in accordance both with the law and the 
custom of the country. 

" That, under the circumstances, your petitioners sub- 
mit that he had not a fair trial, and they pray your 
honorable House to take the matter into your serious 
consideration, with a view to memorialize her Majesty 
to grant a free pardon." 



S6 MYSTIC LONDON. 

The Rev. Mr. Buckingham, a cheery gentleman who 
bore a remarkable resemblance to the celebrated Mr. 
Pickwick, rose to move the resolution ; and I could not 
not help noticing that, not content with the ordinary- 
white tie of clerical life, he had '' continued the idea 
downwards " in a white waistcoat, which rather altered 
the state of things. He spoke well and forcibly I 
should think for an hour, confining his remarks to the 
subject of " Sir Roger " not being Arthur Orton. He 
(Mr. Buckingham) belonged to some waterside mission 
at Wapping, and had known Arthur Orton familiarly 
from earliest boyhood. His two grievances were that 
his negative evidence had not been taken, and that he 
was now being continually waited on by " Jesuits," who 
temptingly held out cheques for looo/. to him if he would 
only make affidavit that the man in Millbank was Arthur 
Orton. 

Mr. Onslow, who seconded the resolution, however, 
made the speech of the evening, and was so enthusias- 
tically received that he had to recommence several times 
after glowing perorations. The burden of Mr. Onslow's 
prophecy was the unfairness of the trial ; and his 
" bogies " were detectives, just as Mr. Buckingham's 
were Jesuits. The Jean Luie affair was the most in- 
fernal " plant " in the whole case ; and he read records 
of conflicting evidence which really were enough to 
make one pack up one's traps and resolve on instant 
emigration. He was, however, certainly right on one 
point. He said that such meetings were safety-valves 
which prevented revolution. No doubt this was a safety- 
valve. It amused the speakers, and Mrs. Warren and 
the glazed artisan ; and it could do nobody any possible 
harm. Whether it was likely to do the man of Mill- 



AN OPEN-AIR TrCHDORNE MEETING. 87 

bank any good was quite another matter, and one which, 
of course, it was quite beside my purpose to discuss. 
There was a deal of — to me — very interesting speaking ; 
for I gained new light about the case, and stood until 
my legs fairly ached listening to Messrs. Buckingham 
and Onslow. 

When the editor of the Tichborne Gazette claimed 
an innings it was another matter ; and — perhaps with 
lack of esprit de corps — I decamped. I only saw this 
gentleman gesticulating as I left the field ; but the rate 
at which he was getting up the steam promised a speech 
that would last till nightfall. 

As I went off the ground I was struck with the clever 
way in which a London costermonger will turn anything 
and everything to account. One of them was going 
about with a truck of cherries, crying out, " Sir Roger 
Tichborne cherries. Penny a lot ! " 

There was no symptom of overt opposition, though 
opponents were blandly invited to mount the wagon 
and state their views ; but there was a good deal of 
quiet chaff on the outskirts of the crowd, which is the 
portion I always select on such occasions for my observa- 
tion. On the whole, however, the assembly was pretty 
unanimous ; and though it never assumed the dimensions 
of a " monster meeting," the fact that even so many 
people could be got together for such a purpose seemed 
to me sufficiently a sign of the times to deserve annota- 
tion in passing. 



88 MYSTIC LONDON. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SUNDAY IN A PEOPLE'S GARDEN. 

T HAVE often thought that an interesting series of 
articles might be written on the subject of " London 
out of Church," dealing with the manners and customs 
of those people who patronize no sort of religious 
establishment on the Sunday. I have seen pretty well 
all the typical phases of religious London and London 
irreligious ; but these would rather be characterized as 
non-religious than as irreligious folks. They do not 
belong to any of the varied forms of faith ; in fact, 
faith is from their life a thing apart. It is in this 
negative way that they are interesting. Sunday is 
with them only a regularly recurring Bank Holiday. 
It would be interesting to know what they do with it. 
A special difficulty, however, exists for me in any such 
inquiry, resulting from the fact that, in my capacity 
of clerical casual, I am pretty generally engaged on the 
Sunday ; and, when I am not, my Day of Rest is 
too valuable to be devoted to any of the manifold 
forms of metropolitan Sabbath-breaking. I have a 
great idea that parsons ought to be frequently preached 
at ; and so I generally go to some church or chapel 
when out of harness myself ; and if " hearing sermons " 
constitute the proper carrying out of the things promised 
and vowed on my behalf at baptism I must have under- 
gone as complete a course of Christian discipline as any 
man in Christendom, for I have been preached at by 



SUNDA V IN A PEOPLE'S GARDEN. 89 

everybody from Roman Catholics down to Walworth 
Jumpers and Plumstead Peculiars ! 

But, impressed with anxiety to know about the 
doings of the non-church-goers^ I have for a long 
time cast sheep's eyes at the Sunday League, and 
more than once definitely promised to join one of their 
Sunday outings ; but I am strongly of Tom Hood's 
opinion that — 

The man who's fond precociously of stirring 
Must be a spoon. 

The Sunday League commence their excursions at 
untimely hours ; and it is a cardinal point in my creed 
that Sunday ought to be a Day of Rest, at all events 
in the matter of breakfast in bed. I missed the excur- 
sion to Shakespeare's House in this way, and the paper 
on the Bard of Avon, full of the genius loci, must have 
been as edifying as a serm.on. So, too, on a recent 
Sunday, when the Sunday League on their way to 
Southend got mixed up with the Volunteer Artillery 
going to Shoebury, I was again found wanting. But 
still the old penchant remained, and Sunday was my 
last free one for a long time. How could I utilize it ? 
I had it ; I would go to the People's Garden at Willes- 
den. I had heard that certain very mild forms of 
Sabbath breaking prevailed there. I would go and see 
for myself. 

I had been at the People's Garden twice before ; 
once on the occasion of a spiritualistic picnic, and once, 
more recently, at a workmen's flower show ; and felt 
considerable interest in the place, especially as the 
People had been polite enough to send me a season 
ticket, so that I was one of the People myself. 



go MYSTIC LONDON. 

This People's Garden was not exactly a Paradise yet, 
though it is in a fair way of becoming one. It is a spot 
of some fifty acres reclaimed from the scrubbiest part 
of Wormwood Scrubbs, and made the focus of a club of 
working men, of whom I am very proud indeed to be 
one. Indeed, I do not see why throughout the re- 
mainder of this article I should not use the first person 
plural. I will. Well, then, we secured this spot, and 
we have got, in the first place, one of the finest — I 
believe the finest — dancing platform in England, for 
we, as a community, are Terpsichorean, though I, as an 
individual, am not. I felt it necessary to give up danc- 
ing when my weight turned the balance at fourteen stone 
odd. Then we can give our friends refreshments from 
a bottle of champagne down to tea and cresses. We 
have all sorts of clubs, dramatic and otherwise, and 
rather plume ourselves on having put up our proscenium 
ourselves — that is, with our own hands and hammers 
and nails. There is the great advantage of being a 
Working Man or one of the People. If you had been 
with me that Sunday you would have seen a glow of 
conscious pride suffusing my countenance as I read the 
bills of our last amateur performance, consisting of the 
" Waterman " and " Ici on parle Frangais," played on 
the boards which I, in my corporate capacity, had 
planed, and sawn, and nailed. My route last Sunday 
lay across the crisp sward of the Scrubbs, and it was 
quite a pleasure to be able to walk there without danger 
of falling pierced by the bullet of some erratic volun- 
teer j for there are three butts on Wormwood Scrubbs, 
which I examined with minuteness on Sunday, and was 
exercised to see by marks on the brickwork how very 
wide of the target a volunteer's shot can go. I wonder 



SUNDA Y IN A PEOPLE'S GARDEN. 91 

there is not a wholesale slaughter of cattle in the neigh- 
boring fields. The garden lies on the other side of the 
Great Western Railway, across which I had to trespass 
in order to get to it. But the man in charge regarded 
me with indulgence, for was I not a working man and a 
" mate ? " The portion of the garden abutting on the 
rail is still unreclaimed prairie. The working men 
have begun at the top of the hill, and are working 
downwards. 

There is a good-sized refreshment-room at the en- 
trance, with all the paraphernalia of secretary's office, 
&c. j and this large room, which is exceedingly useful 
in wet weather, opens right on to the dancing platform, 
in the centre of which is a pretty kiosk for the band. 
We have no gas ; but tasty paraffin lamps at frequent in- 
tervals give sufficient light, and, at all events, do not 
smell worse than modern metropolitan gas. There is a 
large tent standing en permanence ^Mxmg\h^ summer for 
flower shows, and terrace after terrace of croquet lawns, 
all of which, it will, I fear, shock some Sabbatarian per- 
sons to learn, were occupied on that Sunday afternoon, 
and the balls kept clicking like the week-day shots of 
the erratic riflemen on the Scrubbs. I had a young 
lady with me who was considerably severe on the way in 
which we workmen, male and female, handled our mal- 
lets. There was, I confess, something to be desired in 
the way of position ; and one group of German artisans 
in the corner lawn made more noise than was necessary, 
howling and uttering all sorts of guttural interjections, 
as though they were playing polo at least, or taking part 
in a bull-fight, instead of in croquet — beloved of curates. 

And then the flowers. We are making the desert 
blossom like the rose. It is really marvellous to see 



g2 MYSTIC LONDON. 

what has been done in so short a time. We might have 
been a society of market gardeners. We don't get so 
many flowers along the walk of life, we working men ; 
so that we want to see a bit of green sward and a flower 
or two on Sundays. There is a capital gymnasium, and 
our observation of the young men who disport them- 
selves there would lead an uninitiated observer to form 
the opinion that the normal condition of humanity was 
upside down. The way one youthful workman hung by 
his legs on the trapeze was positively Darwinian to be- 
hold. Swings attracted the attention of the ladies ; and 
I regret to say that the particular young lady I escorted 
— who was of the mature age of twelve — passed most 
of the afternoon in a state of oscillation, and was con- 
tinually adjuring me to push her. 

An interesting addition to the gardens — our gardens 
— since I was last there, consisted of a cage of medita- 
tive monkeys, four in number, who were stationed so 
near the gymnasium as inevitably to suggest the Dar- 
winian parallel. They had their gymnasium too, and 
swung gaily on their tree-trunks at such times as they 
were not engaged in eating or entomological researches. 
I could not help thinking what a deprivation it was to 
the gymnasts that, in course of evolution, we have lost 
our tails. They would have been so convenient on the 
horizontal bar, where that persevering young workman 
was still engaged in the pursuit of apoplexy by hanging 
head downwards. Soon after we got there an excellent 
band commenced playing, not in the kiosk, lest we 
should be beguiled into dancing. The first piece was 
a slow movement, which could scarcely have been ob- 
jected to by any Sabbatarian unless he was so uncom- 
promising as to think all trumpets wrong. The second 



SUNDA V IN- A PEOPLE'S GARDEN: 93 

was the glorious march from " Athalie ; " and then — my 
blood runs cold as I write it — a sort of potj^ourri, in the 
midst of which came the " Dutchman's Little Wee Dog," 
considerably disguised in the way of accompaniment 
and variation, I own, but the " Little Wee Dog '* beyond 
a doubt. Then I understood why the band was not in 
the kiosk ; for, fourteen stone tliough I be, I felt all my 
toes twiddling inside my boots at that time as wickedly 
as though it had been Monday morning. There were 
fourteen or fifteen loud brass instruments, with a side 
and bass drum and cymbals. All these were playing 
the " Little Wee Dog " to their brazen hearts' content, 
and only one gentleman on a feeble piccolo-fiute trying 
to choke their in^^piety by tootling out a variation, just 
as the stringed instruments in the glorious " Reforma- 
tion Symphony " of Mendelssohn try in vain to drown 
with their sensuous Roman airs the massive chords of 
the old Lutheran chorale — '' Ein feste Burg ist unser 
Gotty I really could not bear it any longer, and was 
rising to go when they stopped ; and as the gentleman 
who played the circular bass got outside his portentous 
instrument, I found he had a little v/ee dog of his own 
who retired into the bell of the big trumpet when his 
master laid it on the grass. Perhaps it was in honor of 
this minute animal the air was selected. However, I 
could not lend myself to such proceedings ; so I bribed 
my youthful charge with a twopenny bottle of frothless 
ginger beer to come out of her swing and return to the 
regions of orthodoxy. The Teutonic gentlemen were 
still hooting and yelling as we crossed the corner of 
their croquet lawn, until I expected to see them attack 
one another with the mallets and use the balls for mis- 
sile warfare ; but it was only their peculiar way of en- 
joying themselves. 



54 MYSTIC LONDON. 

My little friend described the action of our working- 
men in the croquet lawn as " spooning," and also drew 
my attention to the fact that two lovers were doing the 
same on a seat, in the approved fashion prevalent 
among us workmen, with the manly arm around the 
taper waist coram publico. This arrangement is quite 
a necessity v/ith us. We should often like to forego it, 
especially when little boys make rude remarks about us 
in the street ; but it is expected of us, and we submit. 

The sun was beginning to sink grandly over that mag- 
nificent panorama of country visible from Old Oak Com- 
mon as we passed down the hill and again violated the 
bye-laws of the Great Western Railway Company. The 
spires of the West End churches were bathed in the soft 
glow of departing day; and in the distance the Crystal 
Palace glittered like a fairy bower. We got back after 
making a little Mtoiir on account of some gentlemen 
who were bathing in a very Paradisiacal way indeed— 
we actually got back in time to go to church like good 
Christians ; and I do not think either of us felt much 
the worse for the hours we had spent in the People's 
Garden — save and except the wicked Little Wee Dog 1 



CHAPTER XIV. 

UTILIZING THE YOUNG LADIES. 

'T^IME was when it was accepted as an axiom that 
young ladies had no object in life but to be orna- 
mental — no mission but matrimony. The " accomplish- 
ments " were the sum total of a genteel education. 



UTILIZING THE YOUNG LADIES. 



95 



though charged as " extras " on the half-yearly accounts ; 
and all the finished creature had to do, after once 
"coming out," was to sit down and lang-uidly wait for an 
eligible suitor. 

Times changed. And, in England, when we make 
a change, we always rush violently into an opposite ex- 
treme. Woman had a mission, and no mistake. Now 
it was the franchise and Bloomer costume, just as afore- 
time it was the pianoforte and general fascination. 
Blue spectacles rose in the market. We had lady doc- 
tors and female lawyers. The only marvel is that there 
was no agitation for feminine curates. 

Then came reaction again. It was discovered that 
woman could be educated without becoming a blue- 
stocking, and practical without wearing bloomers or 
going in for the suffrage. Still holding to the whole 
some principle that " w^oman is not undeveloped man , 
but diverse," the real friends of the gentler sex discov- 
ered a hundred and one ways in which it could employ 
itself usefully and remuneratively. It was no longer 
feared lest, as Sydney Smith puts it, if a woman learnt 
algebra she would " desert her infant for a quadratic 
equation ; " and the University of Cambridge soon fell 
in with the scheme for the Higher Education of Women ; 
while Miss Faithfull, and several others, organized 
methods for employing practically the talents which 
education could only develope in a general way. It 
was to one of these methods — not Miss Faithfull's — 
my attention was drawn a short time since by a letter 
in the daily papers. The Victoria Press and Interna- 
tional Bureau are faits acco7nplis^ and it is well that ef- 
forts should be made for utilizing in other ways that 
interesting surplus in our female population. Mrs. Fer- 



^6 MYSTIC LONDON. 

nando, of Warwick Gardens, Kensington, has set herself 
to the solution of the problem^ and the shape her 
method takes is a Technical Industrial Scliool for Wo- 
men. 

The object and aim of the institution is to examine, 
plan, and organize such branches of industrial avocation 
as are applicable to females, and open up new avoca- 
tions of useful industry compatible with the intellectual 
and mechanical capabilities of the sex, not forgetting 
their delicacy, and the untutored position of females 
for practical application in all industrial labor ; to give 
the same facilities to females as are enjoyed by males, 
in collective classes for special training or special prepa- 
ration for passing examinations open to women, thereby 
to enable them to eani their livelihood with better suc- 
cess than is attainable by mere school education only ; 
to give special training to females to qualify them to 
enter special industrial avocations with such compe- 
tency as will enable them to be successful in obtaining 
employment : to apprentice females, or to employ them 
directly into trades where such employers will receive 
them beyond the limits of the industrial school, and 
where females can be constantly employed, such as in 
composing, embossing, illuminating, black-bordering, 
ticket-writing, circular-addressing, flower-making, flower- 
cultivating, etc. 

Being a determined skeptic in the matter of prospect- 
uses, I determined to go and see for myself the working 
of this scheme, which looked so well on paper. The 
institution occupies a large house directly opposite Di, 
Punshon's chapel : and there is no chance of one's 
missing it, for it is placarded with announcements like 
a hoarding at election time. I found Mrs. Fernando 



UTILIZING THE YOUNG LADIES, 97 

an exceedingly practical lady, doing all the work of the 
institution herself, with the exception of a few special 
subjects, such as botany, &c., which are conducted by 
her husband. There are no " assistants," therefore, or 
deputed interests, the bane of so many high-priced 
schools. 

These classes are held in the evening from seven to 
nine o'clock, and are intended for ladies above the age 
of fifteen years, who may be engaged through the day 
in various occupations, and for such as suffer from 
neglected education, and who wish conveniently and 
economically to improve themselves without being ne- 
cessitated to mix with their juniors in day-schools. 
These classes prepare ladies to meet the qualifications 
necessary to enter clerkships and other official depart- 
ments ; to bring them also to a standard to meet the 
qualifications for post-ofhces and telegraph departments; 
and also to pass certain examinations open to them. 
The charge is only 2s. per week — Si", per month — £^A^' 
per quarter. The first course embraces spelling, read- 
ing, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, and gram- 
mar. The second course consists of advanced arith- 
metic, book-keeping, a.nd commercial instruction, so as 
to qualify women to take posts of responsibility with 
marked success. The third course consists of French, 
for practical usefulness. The fourth course embraces 
simple or technical training, in such departments as are 
available within the limits of the class-room, to qualify 
women to enter industrial avocations with competency, 
and to make them successful in obtaining employment. 
This department will be extended to greater usefulness 
as conveniences arise, by apprenticing the girls or em- 



98 MYSTIC LONDON. 

ploying them directly in trades beyond the limits of the 
class-room, where employers will receive them, or where 
women could be consistently engaged — as, for instance, 
in the work of compositors, ticket-writers, embossers, 
etc., etc. 

The two classes with which I was brought into contact 
were the book-keeping and embossing. In the former, 
more than a dozen young ladies were being initiated in 
the mysteries of single and double entry, and they 
posted up their books in a way that made me feel very 
much ashamed of myself, when I thought how incapable 
I should be of doing anything half so useful. Many 
girls go from this department to be book-keepers at 
large hotels, places of business, &c. 

I then went to the embossing room, where six presses 
were being worked by as many young ladies, one in an 
adjoining room being reserved for Mrs. Fernando, who 
not only tells her pupils what to do, but shows them how 
to do it. The gilding and coloring of the stamps was 
most elaborate ; two monograms, of the Queen's name 
and that of the Empress Eugenie, being perfect mar- 
vels of artistic and intricate workmanship. Every pro- 
cess, from mixing the colors up to burnishing the gold, 
was gone through in detail by this practical lady and 
her intelligent pupils for my special edification, and I 
passed out a much wiser, and certainly not a sadder 
man, than I entered this veritable hive of human 
bees. 

No expense was spared in the education of these 
girls, low as are the terms they pay. I saw quite a ruinous 
heap of spoilt envelopes and fashionable sheets of thick 
cream-laid \ for they have to make their experiments on 
the best material, and the slightest alteration in the 



FAIR LOP FRIDA Y. 



99 



position of a pin, where the stamping process has to be 
several times repeated, spoils the whole result. Mrs. 
Fernando has also introduced envelope and circular- 
addressing b}^ women, as a department of female indus- 
trial work in the Technical Industrial School for 
Women, where a number of females are employed be- 
tween the hours of ten and four o'clock, receiving satis- 
factory remuneration. She provides the females em- 
ployed in this department evening classes free of 
charge, to improve themselves in general education. 

I am an intense admirer of the female sex in general, 
and young ladies in particular ; but really when I came 
away, leaving my pretty book-keepers and embossers to 
resume their normal work, and saw the numbers of 
young ladies sitting listlessly over misnamed ''work" 
at the window, or walking languidly nowhither in the 
streets, I thought that, without losing any of their 
attractions — nay, adding a new claim to the many ex- 
isting ones on our regard — they might with great ad- 
vantage take a turn at Mrs. Fernando's sixpenny lessons 
in technical education. 



CHAPTER XV. 

FAIRLOP FRIDAY. 

A MONGST those customs " more honored in the 
■^■^ breach than the observance" which are rapidly 
being stamped out by the advancing steps of civilization, 
are the institutions which we can yet remember as so 
popular in the days of our childhood, called pleasure 



xoo MYSTIC LONDON. 

fairs. Like that social dodo in a higher section of 
society, the " three-bottle man," with the stupid Bacchan- 
alian usages of which he was the embodiment, these 
fairs are slowly but surely disappearing as education 
spreads among the masses of the people. In the country 
a fair is a simple and a necessary thing enough. At 
certain seasons of the year, according to the staple 
commodities for the sale of which the assemblage was 
originally instituted, our bucolic friends gather at early 
morning with the products of their farms \ a good deal 
of noisy buying, selling, and barter takes place. Later 
in the day the ladies invest their profits in a little mild 
finery, or in simple pleasures ; and. later still, when the 
public houses have done their work, comes a greater or 
lesser amount of riot, rude debauchery, and vice ; and 
then, voila tout — the fair is over for a year. One can 
easily imagine the result of the transition when, from 
the quiet country, the fair removes to the city or suburb. 
In such places even utilitarian element is wanting, and 
the gilt ginger-bread and gewgaws are only a speciously 
innocent attraction towards the drinking and dancing 
booth where the mischief is done. Well-wishers to 
society are unromantic enough not to regret the decid- 
edly waning glories of these gatherings, from the great 
Bartholomew Fair itself down to that which, on the 
Friday of which I write, converted many miles of thor- 
oughfare at the East End of London, as well as one of 
the prettiest forest scenes still surrounding the metrop- 
olis, into a Mdi^lal fresco tavern, where the "worship of 
Bacchus" was as freely indulged as in any heathen 
temple of ancient times. 

Fairlop Fair — which has not yet died out, though be- 
ginning to show satisfactory signs of decay — commenced 



FAIRL OP FRIDA Y. I o i 

its existence, innocently enough, about a century ago. 
At tliat time Mr. Day, a shipbuilder, wishing to have a 
day's outing in the forest with his friends and employes, 
fitted up a vessel on wheels, fully rigged, in which he 
conveyed his picnic party to Hainault Forest, on the 
outskirts of which, some distance from Ilford, stood the 
famous Fairlop Oak. The holiday became an annual 
custom, and gradually changed its character from the 
simple gathering of a master and his men into regular 
saturnalia \ during which, each year, from the first Fri- 
day in July, over the ensuing Saturday and Sunday, riot 
and debauchery reigned supreme in the glades of the 
forest and the eastern districts of London. The ex- 
ample set by Mr. Day was followed by other ship, boat, 
and barge builders, but of late years, more particularly 
by the mast and block makers, riggers, shipwrights, and 
shipyard laborers ; and more recently still by the 
licensed victuallers. Finding the custom good for 
trade, the publicans formed a society for building or 
hiring these boats on wheels, which, covered with flags, 
and provided each with a band of music and filled with 
revellers, annually make their progress into Hainault 
Forest. They go no longer, alas ! to Fairlop Oak — for 
that is numbered with the things of the past — but now 
to Barking side, where, at the Maypole Inn, the festiv- 
ities of Fairlop Fair are still kept up. 

These ship and boat cars attract immense multitudes 
along the Mile End, Bow, and Whitechapel Roads, 
down as far as Aldgate ; the crowd assembled in the 
morning to see the holiday people start on their expedi- 
tion. The most remarkable sight, however, is at night 
when the " boats '' return lighted with colored lanterns, 
red and green fires, &c. ; and at every public-house 



102 MYSTIC LONDON. 

along the road similar fires are burnt, and brass bands 
stationed to strike up as the cars pass, and stop at cer- 
tain favored establishments "for the good of the house." 
Anxious to witness the fading glories of Fairlop Friday 
myself, before the advancing tide of civilization shall 
have done their inevitable work upon them, I sallied 
forth to tlie East End, and walking along one of the 
finest approaches to London, from Aldgate, by White- 
chn.pel, to Bow and Stratford Churches, succeeded in 
realizing more completely than ever before two facts: 
first, how gigantic is the population of the East End of 
London ; and secondly, how little is required to amuse 
and attract it. There were only two of the " boats " 
sent to the Forest that year. Their return could gratify 
the sight of those people but for a single instant ; yet 
there, from early dusk almost to succeeding daylight, 
those working men, literally " in their thousands " — and 
not in the Trafalgar Square diminutive of that expres- 
sion — gathered to gratify themselves with the sight of 
the pageant. In comparison, "the ^'- Boeuf Gras^'' yN\\\Qh 
annually sends the gamins of Paris insane, is really a 
tasteful and refined exhibition. Yet there they were, 
women, men, and children — infants in arms, too, to a 
notable extent — swarming along that vast thoroughfare, 
boozing outside the public-houses, investing their pence 
in " scratch-backs " and paper noses, feathers and deco- 
rations, as do their betters on the course at Epsom, 
under the feeble excuse of "waiting for the boats." 
The first arrival en route at Stratford Church about ten 
o'clock ; and certainly the appearance of the lumbering 
affair as it moved along, with its rigging brought out by 
means of colored fires, lanterns, and lamps, was odd 
enough. As soon as it passed me at Stratford, I jumped 



FAIR LOP FRIDA V. 1-03 

outside one of the Bow and Stratford omnibuses, and so 
had an opportunity of following, or rather joining in, 
the procession as far as Whitechapel, where the " boat " 
turned off into Commercial Road. For the whole of 
that space the footway was filled with one seething mass 
of humanity, and the publicans were driving a rattling 
trade outside and inside their establishments. As the 
glare of the colored fires lighted up the pale faces of 
the crowd with a ghastly hue, and I heard the silly and 
too often obscene remarks bandied between the by- 
standers and the returning revellers, I could not help 
agitating the question, whether it would not be possible 
to devise some innocent recreation, with a certain 
amount of refinement in it, to take the place of these — 
to say the best — foolish revelries. In point of fact, they 
are worse than foolish. Not only was it evident that 
the whole affair from beginning to end, as far as adults 
were concerned, was an apotheosis of drink ; but 
amongst another section of the populace, the boys and 
girls, or what used to be boys and girls — for, as the 
Parisians say, " // n'y a plus de garfons " — one must 
have been blind indeed not to see the mischief that was 
being done on those East End pavements ; done more 
thoroughly perhaps, certainly on a vastly larger scale, 
than in the purlieus of the forest. It is an uninviting 
subject to dwell upon ; but one could understand all 
about baby farms, and Lock Hospitals, and Contagious 
Diseases Acts, out there that July night, in the crowded 
streets of East London. 

It would be unfair to dilate upon these evils, and not 
to mention an organization which, for the last ten years, 
has been seeking to remedy the mischief. Some hun- 
dreds of working men of a more serious stamp, aided by 



I04 MYSTIC LONDON, 

a few gentlemen and ministers of various denomina- 
tions, form themselves into small bands of street preach- 
ers, and sallying forth in a body, hold services and 
preach sermons at the most populous points of the Fair- 
lop route. Being curious to see the effect of their bold 
labors — for it requires immense "pluck" to face a 
Whitechapel mob — I joined one of these detachments, 
where the Rev. Newman Hall was the preacher. Before 
starting, this gentleman gave it as the result of his long 
experience with the British workman that there is no 
use in waiting for him to come to church. If the church 
is to do anything with him, it must go out and meet him 
in the streets and fields, as it originally did. Mr. Hall 
gave some amusing illustrations of his experience at 
Hastings, where, for several weeks, he had been preach- 
ing on the beach to large congregations. He was idling 
there, he said, for health's sake, and one evening, seeing 
a number of men loafing about, he proposed to one of 
them that he should give them an address. This gentle- 
man declined the address, but added, characteristically 
enough, " If ye'U gie me some beer I'll drink it." Two 
others, being asked if they would listen, " didn't know 
as they would." Under these unpromising auspices, 
Mr. Hall began, and, attracting a crowd, was " moved 
on " by a policeman. A gentleman who recognized him 
proposed an adjournment to the beach, and there a ser- 
mon was preached, and has been repeated by Mr. Hall 
on several occasions, with a congregation of thousands. 
He has a peculiar knack of speaking in a tongue " under- 
standed of the people," and his address to the Fairlop 
crowd on that Friday night " told " considerably. At 
its conclusion he quietly put on his hat, dropped into 
the crowd, and went his way ; but the tone of criticism 



A CHRISTMAS DIP. 



^05 



amongst his hearers was very favorable, and I quite 
agree with the critics that it's a pity we haven't " more 
parsons like that." It is not, however, simply by relig- 
ious zeal such a want as that to which I allude is to be 
supplied, but by the substitution of some sensible recrea- 
tion for the low attractions of the beershop and gin- 
palace. It is a problem worthy of our deepest think- 
ers : "What shall we offer our huge populations in 
exchange for the silly pageant even now being enacted 
in the outskirts of the metropolis — which may well be 
taken to embody the pastime of the lower orders — Fair- 
lop Fair ? " 



CHAPTER XVI. 

A CHRISTMAS DIP. 

'T^ HERE are few more exhilarating things, on a breezy 
spring morning, than a spurt across that wonderful 
rus in iirbe — Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park — for 
a prospective dip in the Serpentine, where, at specified 
hours every morning and evening, water-loving London 
is privileged to disport itself in its congenial element. 
So congenial is it, in fact, that some enthusiastic indi- 
viduals do not limit themselves to warm summer morn- 
ings, or the cooler ones of springtide and autumn, but 
bathe all the year round — even, it is said, when a way 
for their manoeuvres has to be cut through the ice. 
Skirting the north bank of the Serpentine at morning or 
evening in the summer, the opposite shore appears abso- 
lutel}- -pink with" nude humanity, the younger portion 



I05 MYSTIC LONDON. 

dancing and gambolling very much after the manner ol 
Robinson Crusoe's cannibals. The bathers occasionally 
look a great deal better out of their integuments than 
in them. Not from this class, however, do your all-the- 
y ear-round bathers come. The Arab is an exotic — a 
child of the Sun, loving not to disport himself in water 
the temperature of which shocks his tentative knuckles, 
as he dips them in the unaccustomed element. His 
wardrobe, again, is too much after the fashion of that 
pertaining to Canning's needy knife-grinder to make an 
al fresco toilette other than embarrassing. From the 
all-the-year-round bathers, as a nucleus, there has grown 
up, within the last few years, the Serpentine Swimming 
Club ; and on Christmas-day in the morning they have 
an annual match open to all comers— though, it need 
scarcely be said, patronized only by those whom, for 
brevity's sake, we may term all-rounders. 

Now, I had often heard of this Christmas-day match, 
and as often, on Christmas-eve, made up my mind to 
go \ but the evening's resolution faded away, as such 
resolutions have only too often been known to do, before 
the morning's light. This year, however — principally, I 
believe, because I had been up very late the previous 
night — I struggled out of bed before dawn, and steered 
for the Serpentine. A crescent moon was shining, and 
stars studded the clear spaces between ominous patches 
of cloud. A raw, moist wind was blowing, and on the 
muddy streets were evident traces of a recent shower. 
I had no notion that the gates of Kensington Gardens 
were open so early ; and the sensation was novel as I 
threaded the devious paths in morning dawn, and saw 
tiie gas still alight along the Bayswater Road. A soli- 
tary thrush was whistliog his Christmas c^rol as I strug- 



A CHRISTMAS DIP. 107 

gled over the inundated sward ; presently the sun threw 
a few red streaks along the East, over the Abbey 
Tower ; but, until I had passed the Serpentine bridge, 
not a single human being met my gaze. There, how- 
ever, I found some fifty men, mostly with a " sporting " 
look about them. The ubiquitous boy was there, play- 
ing at some uncomfortable game in the puddles round 
the seats. The inevitable dog stood pensively by the 
diving board ; and when, by-and-by, straggling all- 
rounders came and took their morning header, the 
quadruped rushed after them to the very edge of the 
water, as though he had been a distinguished member of 
the Humane Society. He shirked the element itself, 
however, as religiously as though he had been one of 
London's great unwashed. In the pause which pre- 
ceded the race, I learned, from the Honorable Secretary 
of the Serpentine Swimming Club, particulars of its his- 
tory and of the race itself. For six years it had been 
merely a club race ; but last year it was thrown open. 
Strangely enough the race had never been won twice by 
one man, though the competitors had been pretty much 
the same every year. I also conversed with one of the 
intending competitors, who showed me on his breast 
with pardonable pride, five medals of the Royal Humane 
Society, awarded for saving life in cases of danger from 
drowning. The wearer was a Professor of Natation, 
and told me that, among his pupils, he had an old lady 
sixty-seven years of age, who had just commenced, and 
was able to swim some twenty yards alread}^ The brave 
old lady's example may do good ; though it is to be 
hoped that she may not, at her time of life, be compelled 
to exert her art for her own protection. 

Names were now called, and fourteen competitors 



1 08 M YS TIC L ONDOiV, 

presented themselves — a motley gi'oup, clad for the 
most part in trousers, horse-rug, and wide-awake, or, 
more simply still, in Ulster frieze coat only. The group 
of spectators had by this time grown to some hundreds, 
nearly all directly interested in the noble art ; and the 
dips became fast and frequent. Two flags were placed 
in the water at the distance of 100 yards from the 
diving board ; on this slender platform fourteen 
shivering specimens of humanity ranged themselves, 
and at the word of the starter plunged into the water 
with that downward plunge so incomprehensible to the 
uninitiated. A short, sharp struggle followed, the com- 
petitors swimming with the sidelong movement and 
obstreperous puffing which likens the swimmer so 
closely to the traditional grampus. Eventually one of 
the group is seen heading the others, and breasting the 
water with calm and equable stroke in the old-fashioned 
style. He reaches the flag a full yard before his 
nearest antagonist. Numbers two and three, following, 
are about half a yard apart. The others come in pretty 
much in a group. All were picked men and there were no 
laggards. The names of the winners were as follows : — • 
I. Ains worth ; 2. Quartermain ; 3. H. Coulter. The 
time occupied in the race was i min. 24 sec. Immedi- 
ately after the race there was a rapid re-assumption 
of rugs and Ulsters, though some of the more hardy 
walked about in the garb of Nature, making everybody 
shiver who looked at them. Finally, the prizes, con- 
sisting of three handsome medals, were distributed by 
Mr. H. Bedford, who, stood on a park seat and address- 
ed a few genial words to each of the successful candi- 
dates ; then, with a cheer, and frequent wishes for a 
Merry Christmas, the assembly resolved itself into its 
component parts. 



BOXING-DAY ON THE STREETS. 109 

1 had taken my accustomed cold tub before coming 
out, yet each of these fourteen devoted men appeared to 
me as a hero. They were not Herculean individuals : 
several of, them were mere youths. Some of the all- 
rounders were grey-headed men, but there was about 
them all a freshness and ruddiness which showed that 
their somewhat severe regimen agreed with them. 
Fresh from such a Spartan exhibition, everything seemed 
very late and Sybaritic in my domestic establishment, 
and I could not help revolving in my mind the question, 
what would one of these hardy all-the-year-rounders 
think of me if he knew I was ever guilty of such a mal- 
practice as breakfast in bed ? It is a novel method ; but 
there are many worse ways of inaugurating the Great 
Holiday than by taking — what it had been a novel sensa- 
tion for me even to witness — a Christmas Dip in the 
Serpentine* 



CHAPTER XVII. 

BOXING-DAY ON THE STREETS. 

"D OXING-DAY in the London streets, and especially 
a wet Boxing-day, can scarcely fail to afford us 
some tableaux vivants illustrative of English metropoli- 
tan life. In a metaphorical and technical sense, Box- 
ing-day is always more or less "wet " — generally more, 
and not less ; but this year the expression is used 
climatically, and in its first intention. Christmas-eve of 
the year about which I write was bright and springlike j 
Christmas-day dismal, dark, and un Christmaslike ; but 



xio - MYSTIC LONDON. 

Boxing-day that year was essentially muggy, sloppy, driz- 
zly, and nasty. A day to avoid the London streets if you 
want to take a romantic Rosa-Matilda view of London 
life ; but the very day of all others, if you wish to see real 
London as it is. Boxing-day will inevitably be " wetter " 
in every sense than usual this year, internally and exter- 
nally. So let us commence our series of living pictures 
at ten o'clock in the morning. Suppose we begin with 
something that shall bear reference to the past festival 
— the eve and the day of the Great Birth, recollect. See, 
here is Grotto Passage^ Marylebone, and at its extremity 
Paradise street — the names sound promising, but alas 
for the reality ! We are going to turn for a moment 
into the Marylebone Police Court, where Mr. D'Eyncourt 
is dispensing summary justice to the accumulations of 
the last two days. These are the people who have been 
spending Christmas-eve, Christmas-day, and some por- 
tion of Boxing-day already in the police-cells. Let us 
take one as a typical case. Let that poor little eight- 
year-old Arab step down from the dock and go off with 
his mother, who, we hope, will take the magistrate's ex- 
cellent advice, and keep the child from begging — that is 
why he has spent Christmas in the cells — lest he be sent 
to a school for eight years, and she have to pay for him 
• — God help her ! — she does not look as though she could 
afford very high terms. A bruised and bleeding woman, 
not young or good-looking, enters the box with her head 
bound up. Her lord and master confronts her in the 
dock. It is the " old, old story." A drop of drink yes- 
terday — the day of the Great Nativity, never forget — ■ 
series of " drops of drink" all day long ; and, at five 
o'clock, just when gentility was beginning to think of 
dinner, the kitchen poker was used with frightful effect 



BOXING-DA Y ON THE STREE TS 1 1 1 

A triangular cut over the right eye, and another in the 
dangerous neighborhood of the left ear, administered 
with that s)^mboI of domestic bliss, the kitchen poker, 
sends the wife doubled up into a corner, with an infant 
of two years old in her arms. The head of the family 
goes out for a walk after his exertions. The woman lies 
there bleeding until the neighbors hear her " mourning," 
as she terms it — the result being that the lord and mas- 
ter's " constitutional " is cut short by a policeman, and 
the happy pair are this morning separated for six 
months, at the expiration of which period Paterfamilias 
is to find security for another six months' good behavior. 
Such, starred round with endless episodes of " drunk 
and disorderly," " foul language," and so on, is our first 
tableau this Boxing-day. It is not a pleasant one. Let 
us pass on. 

Along Oxford street, despite the Bank Holiday Act, 
many shops are open, chiefly those devoted to the sale 
of articles eatable, drinkable, and avoidable ; these last 
being in the shape of chemists' shops, and shops for 
Christmas presents — to be shunned by miserly old 
bachelors. Let us turn into the British Museum and see 
sensible, decorous Boxing-day there. At the corner of 
Museum street there is a lively itinerant musician, evi- 
dently French, who plays the fiddle until his bow 
tumbles all to pieces, but he goes on playing with the 
stick as though nothing had happened. When his in- 
strument has come entirely to grief he turns to a clarionet, 
which he carries under his arm, and plays " Mourir pour 
la Patrie " with extraordinary vocal effect and irreverent 
gestures. Punch-and-Judy is largely attended at the 
other end ; Punch is kitchen-pokering his wife, too^ 
Uke the gentleman we have just left \ but we paes 



112 MYSTIC LONDON, 

in with the crowds to the Museum itself. Hahing a 
moment in the reading-room, to jot down a few notes, 
one is struck with the scanty show of students. They are 
spending Boxing-day somewhere else. Passing through 
the Httle knot of people who are permitted by special 
order to come as far as the door of the reading-room, and 
who evidently regard the readers as some curious sort of 
animal exhibited for their special delectation — perhaps 
the book-" worm " of which they have heard so much — ■ 
we go up the stairs, now thronged with crowds in 
unwonted broadcloth and fragrant with the odor of the 
inevitable orange. Next to the drinking fountain, which 
is decidedly the chief attraction, comes the gorilla, and 
then the extinct animals. One stout old lady, con- 
templating the megatherium and mastodon, inquires in 
what parts "them creeturs " are to be found, and seems 
considerably damped by being informed that Nature has 
been " out " of such articles for several seons. The 
mummies, with the bones of their toes sticking out also 
come in for a large share of admiration. There is 
a good deal of rough flirtation going on j but, on the 
whole, the pleasure is rather of a placid order, though 
still contrasting favorably with the settled gloom visible 
on the faces of the attendants in the various galleries. 
How well we understand such gloom ! How utterly hate- 
ful must that giant oak and overgrown extinct armadillo 
be to a man condemned to spend a lifetime in their close 
contemplation ! 

But let us pass on to the artistic Boxing-day keepers 
at the National Gallery. The walk will take us through 
the Seven Dials, and can scarcely fail to be suggestive. 
It is now one o'clock, the traditional hour of dinner ; 
and in Broad Street, St. Giles's, I see, for the first time 



BOXING-DA y ON THE STREE TS. 113 

to-day, the human barometer evidently standing at 
"much- wet." A gentleman in a gray coat and red 
comforter, who bears palpable signs of having been 
more than once on his back, has just reached that per- 
plexing point of inebriety when he can walk quickly or 
run, but cannot stand still or walk steadily. He is pur- 
sued by small children, mostly girls, after whom, every 
now and then, he runs hopelessly, to their intense grat- 
ification. The poultry and bird shops in the Seven 
Dials are objects of some attraction, though they savor 
too much of " business " to be in very great force. The 
National Gallery is crowded with unaccustomed art 
students. There is about the visitors a quiet air of do- 
ing their duty, and being determined to go through with 
it at any price. One brazen-faced quean speculates aud- 
ibly — in fact, very audibly — as to which " picter " she 
should choose if she had her " pick," and decent ma 
trons pass the particularly High Art of the old masters 
with half -averted gaze, as though they were not quite 
sure of doing right in countenancing such exhibitions. 
Hogarth's evergreen " Marriage k la Mode " is a great 
centre of attraction, and the youngsters never tire of 
listening, as " with weeping and with laughter still is 
the story told " over and over again by their elders. 
Gainsborough's likeness of Mrs. Siddons is also a great 
favorite ; but perhaps the picture that attracts most 
attention is Van Eyck's " John Arnolfini, of Lucca, and 
his Wife." The gentleman wears a portentous hat, 
which tickled the fancy of the Boxing-day people im- 
mensely. There were great speculations too among 
them as to whether the curious Tuscan pictures at the 
top of the stairs were "needlework" or not. Still, 
who shall say that these visitors were not the better for 

8 



114 MYSTIC LONDON. 

their visits, surrounded as they were by forms of beauty 
on every side, even if they did not examine them with 
the eye of connoisseurs ? 

Boxing-day on the river : The silent street is almost 
deserted. There is no rush for the Express boat to- 
day. It is literally the streets — muddier and sloppier 
than the Thames itself — that are the attraction. Some 
little boys are making the trip from Westminster to Lon- 
don Bridge as a treat ; and it is an intense joke with 
them to pretend to be dreadfully seasick. Boxing-day 
in the city is synonymous with stagnation. It is a 
howHng wilderness, with nobody to howl. On the Met- 
ropolitan Railway I verily believe travellers were trip- 
ping it like the little boys on board the penny boat. 
And so theatre time draws on, and the interest of Box- 
ing-day grows to a climax. Soon after five o'clock 
groups furtively collect outside the play-houses, half- 
ashamed of being so early, but gathering courage from 
numbers to form the disorderly queue, so unlike that of 
a Parisian theatre. Boxing-night in the theatres others 
will describe. It is too much to expect of one whose 
mission has been the whole day long on the streets. 



CHAPTER XVIIL 

THE VIGIL OF THE DERBY. 

TN those days — happily now gone by — when public 

strangulation was the mode in Merry England, there 

was always an evident fascination appertaining to the 

spot where, on the tiloiTow, some guilty wretch was" to 



THE VIGIL OF THE DERBY. 



115 



expiate his crimes on the gallows. Long before the 
erection of that elegant apparatus commenced, and gen- 
erally on a Sunday evening, when decent citizens had 
newly come from houses of God, where they had heard 
the message of life, crowds began to collect on that cen- 
tral spot in the heart* of the great City dedicated to sud- 
den and violent death. The coming event seemed to 
cast its shadow before ; and throughout the night the 
roysterer or belated traveller made a detour to visit the 
human shambles. I confess to having felt the attrac- 
tion. I could not then bring myself to be present at 
the strangulation proper ; so, as the nearest approach 
to a " sensation," sometimes visited Newgate on the eve 
of the victim elect's last morrow. In the same way, 
being unfortunate enough to be London-bound on the 
day of our great annual holiday, and having heard 
graphic accounts of the Downs on the eve of the Derby, 
I determined that year, as I could not go to the race by 
day, to visit the race-course by night. Let me own the 
soft impeachment : I am not a racing man — not in any 
degree " horsey." When I do go to the Derby it is to 
see the bipeds rather than the quadrupeds \ to empty 
the hamper from Fortnum and Mason's, rather than to 
study the " names, weights, and colors of the riders " on 
the " c'rect card." If you prefer to have the sentiment 
in Latin — and there is no doubt Latin does go much 
farther than English — I am not one of those "' qtios 
pulvere77i Olympiciim collegisse juvat,^'' except in so far 
that " homo sum ; nihil hiimmium alienum a me putoT 
It was to see humanity under a new aspect, I took the 
last train to Epsom on the eve of the Derby. 

In order to combine business with pleasure, and 
economy with both, I took a third-class ticket at Victo- 



1 1 6 MYSTIC L ONDON. 

ria, and was fortunate enough to find a compartment 
already partially occupied by a nigger troupe. In this, 
which under ordinary circumstances I should have 
avoided, I took my seat, and was regaled all the way 
down -with choice morceaux from the repertoire of my 
musical friends. The " talking man " of the party, too, 
enlivened the proceedings by anxiously inquiring of the 
porters at the different stations what they would take 
in the way of refreshment, and issuing unlimited orders 
to imaginary waiters on their behoof. It was a strange 
sensation, being whirled away from home and bed down 
to a wild heath towards midnight ; and as we neared 
our destination, the air began to " bite shrewdly," and 
the sky to look uncommonly like rain — a contretemps 
which would have been fatal to my proposed experi- 
ence. We had to change carriages at Sutton, and here 
a sociable Aunt-Sally-man, struggling under the imple- 
ments of his craft, sought to beguile me from my Afri- 
can friends by offers of a shake-down in his tent, with 
which he proposed to walk across from Ewell and erect, 
instead of journeying on to Epsom. My Ethiopian 
friends jumped at the proposal, and forthwith frater- 
nized with Aunt Sally. I determined to follow out my 
previous plans ; so having drunk to our next merry 
meeting, we parted, ostensibly until to-morrow, but, I 
fear, forever. 

I had been led to expect " high jinks " at Epsom — 
a sort of Carnival in the quiet town. Nothing could 
hav6 been farther from the truth. The town, so far as 
outward semblance went, was almost as quiet as ever. 
A few sporting men thronged the bar of the principal 
hotel, and stragglers hung about the low beer-shops ; 
but there was nothing at all to indicate the imminence 



THE VIGIL OF THE DERB Y. 117 

of the great event. So I fell back on my usual expe- 
dient of appl3nng to the executive, and found not only 
an active and intelligent but exceedingly civil sergeant 
of police, to whom I told my errand. He was pleased 
with the novelty of the idea, and as he happened to be 
then going the round of the town previously to visiting 
the course, I cast in my lot with him for the night. We 
first visited what he termed the " German Opera," on 
Epsom Common. This is an encampment of organ- 
grinders, hurdy-gurdy-players, German bands, etc., who 
pitch their tents here instead of going to the Downs. It 
was, however, rather late when we reached the spot 
where these artists were bivouacking, and they had re- 
tired for the night, so we could not form much idea of 
them beyond their numbers, which seemed consider- 
able, and their odor, which was unfragrant. Thence 
we passed down a short alley to a railway arch, which 
was aglow with many fires, and rang with the sounds of 
many voices. Bidding me make no observation, what- 
ever might be said^ and requesting me to try and look 
like an officer in plain clothes, my cicerone led me into 
the strange arcade,- which I certainly could not have 
entered without his protection. Hundreds of men, 
women, and boys were gathered in groups round coke 
fires, some partaking of coffee, others singing, the ma- 
jority sleeping. After satisfying himself that the fires 
were legitimate ones, and not composed of broken 
fences, my guide left this teeming hive unmolested. 
We then steered for the course, not by the high road, 
but skirting it along the fields. The policeman, like 
myself, carried a stout stick, which really seemed to be 
endowed with creative pc.wers that night. Wherever 
he poked that staff—and he did poke it everywhere — a 



Ii8 MYSTIC LONDON'. 

human being growled, or snored, or cursed. Every 
bush along the hedgerow bore its occupant — often its 
group of four or five, sometimes a party of a dozen or a 
score. One shed filled with carts yielded at least a 
hundred, though the sergeant informed me it must have 
been already cleared several times that evening, as he 
had a file of men along the road, besides a cordon in- 
side the Park palings, which border a great portion of 
it. It is wdth these palings the tramps chiefly do mis- 
chief, pulling them down to make fires along their 
route. Wherever my guide found these, he trampled 
the fires remorselessly out, and kicked the burning em- 
bers over the sleepers in a manner that must have been 
uncomfortable. The men submitted in comparative 
silence; but the ladies — where there happened to be 
any — exerted the privilege of their sex, and treated us 
to some choice specimens of the vernacular. In one 
case, a female cried out that he was kicking the fire 
over the "childer;" and, sure enough, we found half-a- 
dozen little ones huddled up asleep. The policeman 
remonstrated with her for bringing them to such a 
place ; but she informed us it was to " make their liv- 
ing." In what way, she did not add. To us, it seemed 
very much like reversing the process, and causing their 
death. Fancy young children camping out on the road 
to the Downs at midnight! Boys of thirteen and four- 
teen abounded, sleeping in large groups along the 
hedgerows, and sometimes out in the open fields, where 
the dew lay thick. 

At length, after many windings, we reached the 
Downs. The white booths, following the direction of 
the course in their sinuous lines, looked like stately 
white marble streets and crescents in the dim, uncer- 



THE VIGIL OF THE DERBY. ng 

tain light of that hour which, between May 31 and 
June I, is neither day nor night. Under the stands 
and around the booths, tabernacling beneath coster- 
mongers' l^arrows, and even lying out openly sub diOy 
were still the hundreds of human beings. In one small 
drinking booth was a sight the policeman said he had 
never seen equalled in his twenty years' experience. A 
long, narrow table ran down the centre, with benches on 
each side. The table itself was occupied with recumbent 
figures ; on the benches the sleepers sat, bending for- 
ward over it, and under the benches sleepers sprawled 
upon the grass. The whole of the front of the booth 
was open, and exposed to the biting wind ; but there 
they snored as calmly as though on eider-down. We 
climbed the steps of the stand above the ring, and 
waited for the day, which slowly broke to the song of 
the lark and nightingale over that strange scene. With 
the first suspicion of dawn the sleepers awoke and got 
up j what for I cannot imagine. It was barely two 
o'clock, and how they were going to kill the next twelve 
hours I could not guess. Rise they did however, and 
an itinerant vendor of coffee, who was literally up with 
the lark, straightway began to drive a roaring trade. I 
saw no stronger drink than this consumed ; nor did I 
witness a single case of drunkenness during the whole 
night. But this was before the Derby ! At this junc- 
ture we were all surprised by the apparition of a han- 
som-lamp toiling up the hill. Tvv^o adventurous gentle- 
men froH' Liverpool, it appeared, had arrived at the 
Euston Station, and insisted upon being driven at once 
to an hotel on Epsom Downs. The Jehu, secure of a 
fabulous fare, drove them accordingly ; and, of course, 
had to drive them back again to Epsom — the hotels on 



120 MYSTIC LONDON. 

the Downs quietly but firmly declining to be knocked 
up at that untimely hour even by gentlemen from Liver- 
pool. As the sun showed his first up-slanting rays 
above the horizon, with the morning star hanging im- 
pertinently near, the two gipsy encampments began to 
exhibit signs of life. The Zingari encamp exclusively 
by themselves, and some picturesque specimens of the 
male sex, looking remarkably like the lively photograph 
of the Greek brigands, showed themselves on the out- 
skirts. The ladies reserved themselves for later in the 
day. My guide cautioned me not to attempt to enter 
the encampment, as the men are dangerous, and their 
position on the Downs a privileged one. It was only 
when the tramps were trespassing, or evidently bent on 
mischief, that they were disturbed. On the Downs 
they were monarchs of all they surveyed. 

When the sun was fairly up, and the morning mists 
rolled away from those glorious Downs, I felt my 
mission accomplished. I had seen the sun rise on 
Epsom course. As it was many hours before a train 
would return, and I still felt fresh, I resolved to give 
the coup de grace to my night's adventure by walking 
home — at least, walking to the radius of workmen's 
trains. The vanguard of the Derby procession now 
began to show strongly in the shape of the great un- 
washed climbing the ridge of the hill by the paddock j 
and I felt I should see some characteristic sights 
along the road. Bidding good-bye, therefore, to my 
guide at Epsom, I set out on foot along the now 
populous road, mine being the only face turned 
London-wards. Carts laden v/ith trestles and boards 
for stands now began to be in force. By-and-bye the 
well-known paper bouquets and outrageous head-gear 



THE VIGIL OF THE DERBY. I2i 

showed themselves as forming the cargo of coster- 
monger's carts. The travellers were all chatty, many 
of them chaffy. Frequent were the inquiries I had to 
answer as to the hour and the distance to the course. 
Occasionally a facetious gentleman anxiously inquired 
whether it was all over, as I was returning. I be- 
lieve the majority looked upon me as a harmless 
lunatic, since I was travelling away from Epsom on 
the Derby morning, and pitied me accordingly. An 
Irishman aptly illustrated the genial character of 
Hibernian chaff as compared with English. . " Good- 
day to your honner ! " he said. " It does me good to 
see your honner's happy face again ; " though, of 
course, he had never seen it before. As I passed on 
with a brief salutation, he took the trouble to run 
after me, and slapping me on the shoulder, added, in 
a beautiful brogue: "Wait a minnit ; I don't want 
to ax you for anything, but only to tell you how glad 
I am to see yer honner's happy face agin. Good- 
mornin' ! " 

So through Ewell, Cheam, and Morden, up to Toot- 
ing ; the throng increasing at every mile. At Balham, 
finding no train for an hour, I footed it again. I found 
preparations for endless Aunt Sally already being made 
on Clapham Common. Soon after six, I jumped into a 
train on the London, Chatham, and Dover, and came 
home " with the milk ; " having not only had a healthy 
night's exercise — for the weather had all along been 
splendid — but having added to my experiences of Lon- 
don life one new "wrinkle" at least: I had seen the 
life of St. Giles' kitchen and Bethnal Green lodging- 
house a la campagne. What I had already seen under 
the garish candlelight of the Seven Dials and Commer- 



122 MYSTIC LOiVnOM. 

cial road I saw gilded into picturesqueness by that 
glorious and never-to-be-forgotten sunrise on Epsom 
Downs which ushered in the Derby Day. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE WIFESLAYER's " HOME." 

nPHEPvE is something very weird and strange in that 
■^ exceptional avocation which takes one to-day to a 
Lord Mayor's feast or a croquet tournament, to-morrow 
to a Ritualistic service, next day to the home of a 
homicide. I am free to confess that each has its 
special attractions for me. I am very much disposed to 
" magnify my office " in this respect, not from any fool- 
ish idea that I am " seeing life," as it is termed, but 
still from a feeling that the proper study of mankind is 
man in all his varied aspects. 

It need not always be a morbid feeling that takes 
one to the scene of a murder or other horrible event, 
though, as we w^ell know, the majority of those who 
visit such localities do go out of mere idle curiosity. 
It may be worth while, however, for some who look 
a little below the surface of things, to gauge, as it 
were, the genius loci, and see whether, in the influences 
surrounding the spot and its inhabitants, there be any- 
thing to afford a clue as to the causes of the crime. 

In summing up the evidence concerning a certain 
tragedy at Greenwich, where a man killed his wife by 
throwing a knife, the coroner " referred to the horrible 



THE WIFESL AVER'S '' HOME V 123 

abode — a coal cellar — in which the family, nine in 
number, had resided, which was unfit for human habita- 
tion, and ought to have been condemned by the parish 
authorities." Having seen and described in these 
pages something of how the poor are housed in the 
cellars of St. Giles' and Bethnal Green, and traced 
the probable influences of herding together the criminal 
and innocent in the low lodging-houses, it occurred to 
me to visit the scene of this awful occurrence, and see 
how far the account given before the coroner's jury was 
correct. 

With this view I took the train to Greenwich, and, 
consulting the first policeman I met, was by him directed 
to Roan Street as the scene of the tragedy. Roan 
Street I found to be a somewhat squalid by-street, run- 
ning out of Skelton Street, close — ^it seemed significantly 
close — to the old parish church. One could not help 
thinking of' the familiar proverb, "The nearer the 
church, the farther from God." The actual locality is 
called Munyard's Row, being some dozen moderate- 
sized houses -in Roan Street, let out in lodgings, the 
particular house in question being again, with a horrible 
grotesqueness, next door but one to a beer-shop called 
the " Hit or Miss ! " I expected to find Roan Street 
the observed of all observers, but the nine days' wonder 
was over since what Dickens called the " ink-widge." 
Indeed, a homicide has ceased to be a nine days' won- 
der now. This only happened on Saturday ; and when 
I was there, on the following Wednesday, Roan Street 
had settled down into its wonted repose. A woman 
with a child was standing on the door-step, and, on my 
inquiring if I could see the kitchen, referred me to Mrs. 
Bristow at the chandler's shop, who farms the rent of 



1 2 4 MYSTIC L ONDON. 

these populous tenements ; for Munyard's Row is 
peopled "from garret to basement," and a good way 
underground too. 

Mrs. Bristow, a civil, full-flavored Irishwoman, readily 
consented to act cicerone, and we went through the pas- 
sage into the back garden, where all the poor household 
furniture of the homicide's late "home" was stacked. 
It did not occupy a large space, consisting only of the 
bedstead on which the poor woman sat when the fatal 
deed was done, two ricketty tables, and two chairs. 
These were all the movables of a family of nine. The 
mattress was left inside — too horrible a sight, after what 
had taken place, to be exposed to the light of day. 

We passed — Honora Bristow and myself — with a 
"gossip" or two, who had come to see what I was 
after, into the back kitchen, for the wifeslayer had two 
rooms en suite, though the family elected to occupy only 
one. The floor of this apartment was either mother- 
earth, or, if flagged, so grimed with filth as to be a very 
fair resemblance of the soil. Here stood only that ter- 
rible memento, the drenched mattress. In the front 
kitchen — which, let me state, would have been palatial 
in comparison with the Seven Dials or Spitalfields, had 
it been only clean — there was very little light, for the 
window, which was well down below the surface of the 
pavement, had not a whole pane in it, and the broken 
ones had been stuffed up with old rags, which were very 
protuberant indeed. That window alone would show 
that the menage had not been a judicious one. 

" He was a quiet man," said Honora, " and gave 
trouble to no one. He and his wife never had a word." 
The gossips all believed that the story of the throwing 
the knife was true, notwithstanding the medical evi- 



THE WIFESL AVER'S "HOME r 125 

dence went against it. The boy of twelve who provoked 
the father to throw the knife, was evidently the incubus 
of the wretched home. " Almost before the breath was 
out of his mother, that boy was searching about the 
bed to see if he could find any ha'pence," said Honora. 
That boy was evidently not satisfactory. His evidence 
was refused by the Coroner, because he could not read 
or write. But then what had been the child's sur- 
roundings ? They have been described above. The 
man himself had a patriarchal family of seven, from a 
girl of seventeen down to a baby of two, and all, as we 
have seen, slept in one room, though there were two, 
and though a bucket of whitewash would have made the 
pair habitable, besides giving the lad some useful em- 
ployment. 

The father was of no particular occupation, picking 
up odd jobs, and leaning largely to the shrimp trade. 
He stood high in Honora Bristow's regards as having 
regularly paid his is. 9^. a week for five years, or, at 
least, being some z^s. behind now ; a sum which will 
probably be covered by the chattels in the back garden. 
The poor home was silent then. The mother lay calm- 
ly in the dead house, after the post-mortem examination, 
"terrible cut and hacked about," said the one gossip 
who had ventured to go and see her quondam friend. 
The father was in Maidstone Gaol. The little children 
were being taken care of by their grandmother until 
such time as the mother should have been buried, when 
they would gravitate to the workhouse. 

In the meantime the boy, cet. twelve, the cause of all 
the mischief, disports himself in Munyard's Row as 
though nothing had happened. Perhaps he is the most 
difficult part of the problem ; but the whole question of 



1 2 6 MYSTIC L ONDON. 

the home is a puzzling one. The boy is evidently the 
product of the home. It very much concerns the com- 
munity that such produce should become extinct; and 
therefore the sooner some improvements can be intro- 
duced into such homes the better. In the first place, 
there is decidedly too little light. Sunshine, under any 
circumstances, would have been impossible there. The 
advisability of human beings burrowing under ground 
may be questioned, whether in cellars or genteel under- 
ground kitchens. 

Then again, one bedroom — nay, one bedstead — for 
father, mother, and seven children ranging from seven- 
teen to two is decidedly deficient. This sounds almost 
too horrible to be true ; but I was careful to ascertain 
that the eldest girl, though in domestic service in Green- 
wich, slept at the " home." More horrible still is the 
fact disclosed, that they had a second room, yet had not 
the decency to use it. '"'' De 7nortuis nil nisi bonumT 
They lived according to their light ; but they had very 
little light, literally or figuratively. Surely we want to 
teach our poor the simple rules of hygiene. One of the 
gossips, a clean, healthy little woman, with a fine baby 
at her breast, referred with pride to her poor kitchen, 
identical in all respects, save dirt, with the home. 

Then, again, there was one thing that struck me 
forcibly, and that was the sort of qualified reprobation 
with which these good gossips — really decent people in 
their way — spoke of the habit of throwing knives. 
Honora had once thrown one at her daughter of eight- 
een, but never meant to do so again. And all this 
under the bells of the old parish church of Greenwich 
in the year of grace 1870 ! 

Clearly, however, the first question is what to do with 



BATHING IN THE FAR EAST. 127 

the boy, (st. twelve. Comporting himself as he did in 
the face of the awful tragedy he had caused, this young 
gentleman must clearly not be lost sight of, or it will be 
the worse for himself and those with whom he is brought 
into contact. Nay, in a few years, he will become a 
centre of influence, and radiate around him another 
such "home," worse, perhaps, than the first- 
Let our Social Science so far break through the pro- 
gramme it may have laid down as to touch on this very 
appropriate subject of squalid homes, and its next sit- 
ting may be a very useful one indeed. 



CHAPTER XX. 

BATHING IN THE FAR EAST. 

A VISIONS of Oriental splendor and magnificence 
float across the imagination at the mere mention 
of the storied East. Soaring above all the routine 
of ordinary existence and the commonplaces of his- 
tory, that creative faculty within us pictures Pactolus 
with its golden sands ; or recalls from the legendary 
records of childhood the pomp of Aladdin's Princess 
going to her luxurious bath ; or brings back to mind 
the almost prosaic minuteness with which the Greek 
poet describes the bath of Ulysses when he returned 
from his wanderings. In the East the bath has ever 
been an institution — not merely a luxury but a necessi- 
ty ; and it is a proof of the eclectic tendencies of our 
generation that we have domesticated here in the West 
that great institution, the Ha?n77iam, or Turkish bath, 



128 MYSTIC LONDON, 

which the Romans were wise enough to adopt, aftei 
their Eastern experience, more than two thousand years 
ago. Of none of these Oriental splendors, however, 
has the present narrative to tell. I ask those interested 
in social questions to take a very early Sunday expedi- 
tion to the East End of London, and eateh a glimpse 
of those whom, after what I have to relate, it would be 
libel to call the " Great Unwashed." We will look at 
East London engaged in the interesting process of per- 
forming its ablutions. 

Very enjoyable is a Saturday afternoon stroll m Vic- 
toria Park. Those gentlemen of London who sit at 
hom^e at ease are apt to think of the East End as a 
colleetion of slums, with about as much breathing space 
for its congregated thousands as that supplied to the 
mites in a superannuated Cheshire cheese. Let us pass 
through Bethnal Green Road, and, leaving behind the 
new Museum, go under a magic portal into the stately 
acres which bear the name of our Sovereign. On our 
right is the Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, of which 
the foundation-stone was laid by the Prince Consort, 
and the new wing of which our Orientals hope one day 
to see opened by her Majesty in person. Most con- 
vincing test of all is the situation of this Consumptive 
Hospital — showing the salubrity of the Eastern breezes. 
Inside the imposing gate the visitor will find extensive 
cricket-grounds interspersed with broad pastures, whose 
flocks are the reverse of Arcadian in hue. Cricket- 
balls whiz about us like shells at Inkermann ; and the 
suggestive " Thank you " of the scouts forces the passer- 
by into unwonted activity as he shies the ball to the 
bowler. Then there are roundabouts uncountable, and 
gymnasia abundant. There are bosquets for the love 



BA THING IN THE FAR EAST. 



129 



makers, and glassy pools, studded with islands innu- 
merable, over which many a Lady of the Lake steers 
her shallop, while Oriental sailor-boys canoe wildly 
along. These are flower-beds which need not blush to 
be compared with Kew or the Crystal Palace. But it 
is not with such that we are now concerned. On one of 
those same lakes over which, on Saturday evening, 
sailors in embryo float their mimic craft — and one young 
gentleman, slightly in advance of the rest, directs a very 
miniature steamship — we see boards suggesting that 
daily, from four to eight a. m., the Orientals may im- 
merse themselves in the limpid and most tempting 
waters. The depth, they are paternally informed, in- 
creases towards the centre, buoys marking where it is 
six feet ; so that our Eastern friends have no excuse for 
suicide by drowning. 

East London birds are early birds, and to catch them 
at their bath you must be literally up with the lark. 
Towards six o'clock is the most fashionable hour for 
our metropolitan Pactolus ; and, as it is some miles dis- 
tant from what can, by any stretch of courtesy, be call- 
ed the West End, and as there are no workmen's trains 
on a Sunday morning, a long walk or cab drive is in- 
evitable for all who would witness the disporting of our 
amphibious Orientals. Rising thus betimes on a recent 
" Sunday morning before the bells did ring," I sped me 
to the bathing pond, judiciously screened oif by shrubs 
from the main path. It was between the appointed 
hours that I arrived ; and, long before I saw anything, 
the ringing laughter of the young East reached me 
through the shrubs. Threading the path which led to 
the lake, I found the water literally alive with men, boys, 
and hobbledehoys, revelling in the water like young 

9 



130 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



hippopotami on the Nile. Boys were largely in the as- 
cendant — boys from ten to fifteen years of age swam 
like young Leanders, and sunned themselves on the 
bank, in the absence of towels, as the preparative to 
dressing, or smoked their pipes in a state of nature. 
It is only just to say that while I remained, I heard 
little if any language that could be called "foul." Very 
free and easy, of course, were the remarks, and largely 
illustrative of the vulgar tongue ; not without a share of 
light chaff directed against myself, whose presence by 
the lake-side puzzled my young friends. I received nu- 
merous invitations to " peel " and have a dip ; and 
one young urchin assured me in the most patronizing 
way possible that he " wouldn't laugh at me " if I could 
not get on. The language may not have been quite so 
refined as that which I heard a few days before from 
the young gentlemen with tall hats and blue ties at 
Lord's j but I do say advisedly that it would more than 
bear comparison with that of the bathers in the Serpen- 
tine, where my ears have often been assailed with some- 
thing far worse than anything I heard in East London. 
In the matter of clothes, too, the apparel of our young 
friends was indeed Eastern in its simplicity; yet they 
left it unprotected on the bank with a confidence that 
did honor to our common humanity in general, and to 
the regulations of Victoria Park in particular. Swim- 
ming in some sort was almost universal among the bath- 
ers, showing that their visit to the water was not an iso- 
lated event in their existence, but a constant as it is a 
wholesome habit. The Oriental population were for 
the most part apparently well fed ; and one saw there 
lithe and active frames, either careering gracefully along 
iu the old style of swimming, or adopting the new and 



I 



BATHING IN THE FAR FAST. 131 

scientific method which causes the human form divine 
to approach very nearly to the resemblance of a rather 
excited grampus. 

But inexorable Time warns the youthful bathers that 
they must sacrifice to the Graces ; and some amusing 
incidents occur during the process. Generally speaking, 
though the amount of attire is not excessive, consider- 
able effort in the way of pinning and hitching is required 
to get thmgs in their proper places. A young gentle- 
man was reduced to inexpressible grief, and held up to 
the scorn of his fellow-bathers, by the fact that, in the 
course of his al fresco toilette, one of his feet went 
through his inexpressibles in an honorable quarter, 
instead of proceeding by the proper route ; the error 
interested his friends vastl}' — for they are as critical as 
the most fastidious could be of any singularity in attire, 
and they held the unfortunate juvenile in his embarrass- 
ing position for a long time, to his intense despair, 
until he was rescued from his ignoble position by some 
grown-up friend. Then, the young East is prone to the 
pleasures of tobacco. It was, I presume, before break- 
fast with most of the bathers, and smoking under those 
conditions is a trial even to the experienced. Some? 
pale from their long immersion — for theirs was no tran- 
sient dip — grew paler still after they had discussed the 
pipe or cigar demanded of them by rigorous custom. 
Fashion reigns supreme among the gamins of the East 
as well as among the ladies of the West. Off they went, 
however, cleaner and fresher than before — tacitly en- 
dorsing by their matutinal amusement the motto that 
has come down from the philosopher of old, and even 
now reigns supreme from Bermondsey to Belgravia,that 
" water is a most excellent thing." 



132 MYSTIC L OND OJV. 

The day may arrive perhaps when, having embanked 
the Thames, we shall follow suit to the Seine and the 
Rhine, by tenanting it with cheap baths for the many. 
Until we do so, the stale joke of the " Great Unwashed " 
recoils upon ourselves, and is no less symptomatic of 
defective sanitary arrangements than the possibility of a 
drought in Bermondsey. But we are forgetting our 
bathers. They have gone, leaving the place to solitude 
— some, I hope, home to breakfast, others out among 
the flower-walks or on the greensward. It is a gloomy, 
overcast, muggy, unseasonable July morning ; and the 
civil attendant by the lakeside tells me that the gather- 
ing has not been so large as usual. The young Orien- 
tals — as is the custom of their race — love sunshine. 
They get little enough of it. Heaven knows. The next 
bright Sunday morning, any one who happens to be 
awake between the hours mentioned, and who would 
like to add to his experiences of metropolitan existence, 
may do a worse thing, and see many a less pleasant 
sight, than if he hailed a hansom and drove by the 
principal entrance of Victoria Park to our Eastern 
Bath. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

'' I ^HERE is no more engaging or solemn subject of 

contemplation than the decay of a religious belief. 

Right or wrong, by that faith men have lived and died, 

perhaps for centuries; and one cannot see it pass out 



AMONG THE QUAKERS, ^^^ 

from the consciousness of humanity without something 
more than a cursory thought as to the reasons of its 
decadence. Being led by exceptional causes to take a 
more than , common interest in those forms of belief 
which lie beyond the pale of the Church of England, I 
was attracted by a notice in the public journals that on 
the following morning the Society of Friends would 
assemble from all parts of England and open a Con- 
ference to inquire into the causes- which had brought 
about the impending decay of their body. So, then, the 
fact of such decay stood confessed. In most cases the 
very last persons to realize the unwelcome truth are 
those who hold the doctrines that are becoming effete, 
Quakerism must, I felt, be in a very bad condition 
indeed when its own disciples called together a con- 
ference to account for its passing away. Neither men 
nor communities, as a rule, act crowner's quest on their 
own decease. That faith, it was clear, must be almost 
past praying for which, disbelieving, as our modern 
Quietism does, the efficacy of assemblies, and trusting 
all to the inward illumination of individuals, should yet 
summon a sort of Quaker (Ecumenical Council. I 
thought I should like to probe this personal light 
myself, and by inquiring of one or two of the members 
of the body, learn what they thought of the matter. I 
was half inclined to array myself in drab, and tiitoyer\}i\^ 
first of the body I chanced to encounter in my walks 
abroad. But then it occurred to me how very seldom 
one did meet a Quaker nowadays except in the " month 
of Maying." I actually had to cast about for some 
time before I could select from a tolerably wide and 
heterogeneous circle of acquaintance two names of indi- 
viduals belonging to the Society of Friends ; though I 



134 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



could readily remember half a dozen of every other 
culte, from Ultramontanes down to Jumpers. These 
two, at all events, I would " interview," and so forestall 
the conference with a little select synod of my own. 

It was possible, of course, to find a ludicrous side to 
the question ; but, as I said, I approached it seriously. 
Sydney Smith, with his incorrigible habit of joking, ques- 
tioned the existence of Quaker babies — a position which, 
if proven, would, of course, at once account for the 
diminution of adult members of the sect. It was true 
I had never seen a Quaker infant ; but I did not theit- 
fore question their existence, any more than I believed 
postbo3^s and certain humble quadrupeds to be immor- 
tal because I had never seen a dead specimen of either. 
The question I acknowledged at once to be a social and 
religious, not a physiological one. Why is Quakerism, 
which has lived over two hundred years, from the days 
of George Fox, and stood as much persecution a,s any 
system of similar age, beginning to succumb to the in- 
fluences of peace and prosperity ? Is it the old story of 
Capua and Cannse over again ? Perhaps it is not 
quite correct to say that it is now beginning to decline ; 
nor, as a fact, is this Conference the first inquiry which 
the body itself has made into its own incipient decay. 
It is even said that symptoms of such an issue showed 
themselves as early as the beginning of the eighteenth 
century ; and prize essays have been from time to time 
written as to the causes, before the Society so far fell 
in with the customs of the times as to call a council for 
the present very difficult and delicate inquiry. The first 
prize essay by William Rountree attributes the falling 
off to the fact that the early Friends, having magnified 
a previously slighted truth — that of the Indwelling 



AMONG THE QUAKERS. 135 

Word — fell into the natural error of giving it an undue 
place, so depriving their representations of Christian 
doctrine of the symmetry they would otherwise have pos- 
sessed, and influencing their own practices in such a 
way as to contract the basis on which Christian fellow- 
ship rests. A second prize essay, called " The Pecu- 
lium," takes a still more practical view, and points out 
in the most unflattering way that the Friends, by elimi- 
nating from their system all attention to the arts, music, 
poetry, the drama, &c., left nothing for the exercise of 
their faculties save eating, drinking, and making money. 
"The growth of Quakerism," says Mr. T. Hancock, 
the author of this outspoken essay, " lies in its enthusi- 
astic tendency. The submission of Quakers to the 
commercial tendency is signing away the life of their 
own schism. Pure enthusiasm and the pursuit of money 
(which is an enthusiasm) can never coexist, never co- 
operate ; but," he adds, " the greatest loss of power re- 
served for Quakerism is the reassumption by the Catliolic 
Church of those Catholic truths which Quakerism wms 
separated to witness and to vindicate." 

I confess myself, however, so far Quaker too, that I 
care little for the written testimony of friends or foes. 
I have, in all my religious wanderings and inquiries, 
adopted the method of oral examination ; so I found 
myself on a recent November morning speeding off by 
rail to the outskirts of London to visit an ancient Quak- 
er lady whom I knew very slenderly, but whom I had 
heard was sometimes moved by the spirit to enlighten a 
Uttle suburban congregation, and was, therefore, I felt, 
the very person to enlighten me too, should she be 
thereunto moved. She was a venerable, silver-haired 
old lady, clad in the traditional dress of her sect, and 



136 MYSTIC LONDON. 

looking very much like a living representation of Eliza- 
beth Fry. She received me very cordially; though I 
felt as if I were a fussy innovation of the nineteenth 
century breaking in upon the sacred, old-fashioned quiet 
of her neat parlor. She " thee'd and thou'd " me to my 
heart's content : and — to summarize the conversation I 
held with her — it was to the disuse of the old phrase- 
ology and the discarding of the peculiar dress that she 
attributed most of the falling off which she was much 
too shrewd a woman of the world to shut her eyes to. 
These were, of course, only the outward and visible 
signs of a corresponding change within ; but this was 
why the Friends fell off, and gravitated, as she confess- 
ed they were doing, to steeple-houses, water-dipping, 
and bread-and-wine-worship. She seemed to me like a 
quiet old Prophetess Anna chanting a " Nunc Dimittis " 
of her own on the passing away of her faith. She would 
be glad to depart before the glory had quite died out. 
She said she did not hope much from the Conference, 
and, to my amazement, rather gloried in the old irrever- 
ent title given by the Independents to her forefathers 
from their " quaking and trembling " when they heard the 
Word of God, though she preferred still more the older 
title of " Children of the Light." She was, in fact, a 
rigid old Conservative follower of George Fox, from the 
top of her close-bordered cap to the skirts of her grey 
silk gown. I am afraid my countenance expressed in- 
credulity as to her rationale of the decay ; for as I rose 
to go, she said, " Thou dost not agree friend, with what 
I have said to thee — nay, never shake thy head ; it would 
be wonderful if thou didst, when our own people don't. 
Stay ; I'll give thee a note to my son in London, though 
he will gainsay mtich of what I have told thee." She 



AMONG THE QUAKERS. 



137 



gave me the letter, which was just what I wanted, for 1 
felt I had gained little beyond a pleasant experience of 
old-world life from my morning's jaunt. I partook of 
her kindly hospitality, was shown over her particularly 
cosy house, gardens, and hothouses, and meditated, on 
my return journey, upon many particulars I learnt for 
the first time as to the early history of Fox ; realizing 
what a consensus there was between the experiences of 
all iUuminati. I smiled once and again over the quaint 
title of one of Fox's books which my venerable friend 
had quoted to me — viz., " A Battle-door for Teachers 
and Professors to learn Plural and Singular. You to 
Mafty, and Tkou to One; Singular, One, Thou ; Plural, 
Many, l'<??/." While so meditating, my cab deposited 
me at the door of a decidedly " downy " house at the 
West End, where my prospective friend was practising 
in I will not mention which of the learned professions. 
Both the suburban cottage of the mother and the Lon- 
don minage of the son assured me that they had thriven 
on Quakerism j and it was only then I recollected that 
a poor Quaker was as rare a personage as an infantile 
member of tHe Society. 

The young man — who neither in dress, discourse, 
nor manner differed from an ordinary English gentle- 
man — smiled as he read his mother's lines, and, with a 
decorous apology for disturbing the impressions which 
her discourse might have left upon me, took precisely 
the view which had been latent in my own mind as to 
the cause of the Society's decay. Thoroughly at one 
with them still on the doctrine of the illuminating 
power of the Spirit in the individual conscience, he 
treated the archaic dress, the obselete phraseology, the 
obstinate opposition to many innocent customs of the 



1^8 MYSTIC LONDON. 

age, simply as anachronisms. He pointed with pride 
to the fact that our greatest living orator was a member 
of the Society ; and claimed for the underlying prin- 
ciple of Quakerism — namely, the superiority of a con- 
science void of offence over written Scripture or formal 
ceremony — the character of being in essence the broad- 
est creed of Christendom. Injudicious retention of cus- 
toms which had grown meaningless had, he felt sure, 
brought down upon the body that most fatal of all in- 
fluences — contempt. " You see it in your own Church," 
he said. " There is a school which, by reviving obso- 
lete doctrines and practices, will end in getting the 
Church of England disestablished, as it is already dis- 
integrated. You see it even in the oldest religion of 
all — ^Judaism. You see, I mean, a school growing into 
prominence and power which discards all the accumula- 
tions of ages, and by going back to real antiquity at 
once brings the system more into unison with the cen- 
tury, and prevents that contempt attaching to it which 
will accrue wherever a system sets its face violently 
against the tone of current society." He thought the 
Conference quite unnecessary. " There needs no ghost 
come from the dead to tell us that, Horatio," he said 
cheerily. " They will find out that Quakerism is not a 
proselytizing religion," he added, " which, of course, we 
knew before. They will point to the fashionable at- 
tire, the gold rings, and lofty chignons of our younger 
sisters as direct defiance of primitive custom. I am un- 
orthodox enough " — and he smiled as he used that 
word — " to think that the attire is more becoming to my 
younger sisters, just as the Society's dress is to my dear 
mother." That young man, and the youthful sisters he 
told me of. stood as embodied answers to the question 



PENNY READINGS. 1 3^ 

I had proposed to myself. They were outward and vis- 
ible evidences of the doctrine of Quaker "develop- 
ment." The idea is not dead. The spirit is living 
still. It is the spirit that underlies all real religion — 
namely, the personal relation of the human soul to God 
as the source of illumination. That young man was as 
good a Quaker at heart as George Fox or William Penn 
themselves; and the "apology" he offered for his 
transformed faith was a better one than Barclay's own. 
I am wondering whether the Conference will come to 
anything like so sensible a conclusion as to why Qua- 
kerism is declining. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PENNY READINGS. 

"\ T 7H0 has ever penetrated beneath the surface of 
clerical society — meaning thereby the sphere of 
divinities (mostly female) that doth hedge a curate of a 
parish — without being sensible of the eligibility of 
Penny Readings for a place in Mystic London ? When 
the Silly Season is at its very bathos ; when the mon- 
ster gooseberries have gone to seed and the showers of 
frogs ceased to fall ; after the matrimonial efforts of 
Margate or Scarborough, and before the more decided 
business of the Christmas decorations, then there is 
deep mystery in the penetralia of every parish. The 
great scheme of Penny Readings is being concocted, 
and all the available talent of the district — all such as 



I40 MYSTIC LONDON. 

is " orthodox " and " correct " — is laid under contribu- 
tion. 

It is true to a proverb that we English people have a 
knack of doing the best possible things in the worst 
possible way ; and that not, unfrequently, when we do 
once begin doing them we do them to death. It takes 
some time to convince us that the particular thing is 
worth doing at all ; but, once persuaded, we go in for it 
with all our British might and main. The beard-and- 
mustache movement was a case in point. Some years 
ago a mustache was looked upon by serious English peo- 
ple as decidedly reckless and dissipated. A beard was fit 
only for a bandit. Nowadays, the mildest youth in the 
Young Men's Christian Association may wear a mus- 
tache without being denounced as " carnal," and pater- 
familias revels in the beard of a sapeur, no misopogon 
daring to say him nay. To no " movement," however, 
does the adage " Vires acqiiirit eundo " apply more 
thoroughly than to that connected with " Penny Read- 
ings." Originally cropping up timidly in rustic and 
suburban parishes, it has of late taken gigantic strides, 
and made every parish where it does not exist, rural or 
metropolitan, very exceptional indeed. There was a 
sound principle lying at the bottom of the movement, 
in so far as it was designed to bring about a fusion of 
classes ; though, perhaps, it involved too much of an 
assumption that the " working man " had to be lectured 
to, or read to, by his brother in purple and fine linen. 
Still the theory was so far sound. Broad cloth was to 
impart to fustian the advantages it possessed in the 
way of reading, singing, fiddling, or what not ; and that 
not gratuitously, which would have offended the work- 
ing man's dignity, but for the modest sum of one penny, 



PENNY READINGS. 



141 



which, whilst Lazarus was not too poor to afford, Dives 
condescended to accept, and apply to charitable pur- 
poses. 

Such being, in brief, the theory of the Penny Read- 
ing moveiTient, it may be interesting to see how it is 
carried out in practice. Now, in order to ascertain this, 
I availed myself of several opportunities afforded by the 
commencement of the Penny Reading season, which 
may be said to synchronize very nearly with the advent 
of London fogs, and attended the opening of the series 
in several widely different localities. In describing my 
experiences it would perhaps be invidious to specify the 
exact locality where they were gathered. I prefer to 
collate those experiences which range from Campden 
Hill to Camden Town inclusive. Amid many distin- 
guishing traits there are common elements traceable in 
all, which may enable us to form some estimate of the 
working of the scheme, and possibly to offer a few words 
of advice to those interested therein. 

In most cases the Penny Readings are organized by 
the parochial clergy. We will be orthodox, and consider 
them so to be on the present occasion. In that case, 
the series would probably be opened by the incumbent 
in person. Some ecclesiastical ladies, young and middle- 
aged, who, rightly or wrongly, believe their mission is 
music, and to whom the curate is very probably an at- 
traction, aid his efforts. Serious young men read, and 
others of a more mundane turn of mind sing doleful 
" comic" songs, culled from the more presentable of 
the music-hall r&pertoire. In many cases skilled 
amateurs or professionals lend their valuable assistance ; 
and it is not too much to say that many a programme is 
presented to the audience — ay, and faithfully carried out 



142 MYSTIC LONDON. 

too — which would do credit to a high-priced concert- 
room. But, then, who make up the audience? Gradu- 
ally the " penny " people have been retiring into the 
back-ground, as slowly but as surely as the old-fashioned 
pits at our theatres are coyly withdrawing under the 
boxes to make way for the stalls. The Penny Readings 
have been found to " draw " a higher class of audience 
than those for whom they were originally intended. The 
curate himself, if unmarried, secures the whole spinster- 
hood of the parish. His rendering of the lines, " On 
the receipt of my mother's picture out of Norfolk," is 
universally acknowledged to be " delightful ; " and so, 
in course of time, the Penny Readings have been found 
to supply a good parochial income ; and the incumbent, 
applying the proceeds to some local charity, naturally 
wishes to augment that income as much as possible. 
The consequence is that the penny people are as com- 
pletely nowhere at the Penny Readings as they are in the 
free seats at their parish church. The whole of the 
body of the room is " stalled off," so to say, for sixpenny 
people, and the penny folk are stowed away anywhere. 
Then, again, in several programmes I have been at the 
pains to analyze, it is palpable that, whilst the bulk of 
the extracts fire over the heads of the poor people, one 
or two are inserted which are as studiously aimed at 
them as the parson's remarks in last Sunday's sermon 
against public-house loafing. Still " naming no names," 
I attended some readings where one of the clergy read 
a long extract from Bailey's " Festus," whilst he was 
succeeded by a vulgar fellow, evidently put in for " the 
gods," who delivered himself of a parody on Ingoldsby, 
full of the coarsest slang— nay, worse than that,, abound- 
ing in immoralities which, I hope, made the parochial 



PENNY READINGS. 14 

clerg}^ sit on thorns, and place the reader on their 
** Index Expurgatorius " from henceforth. 

Excellent in its original design, the movement is 
obviously degenerating into something widely different. 
First, I would say, Let your Penny Readings be really 
Penny Readings, and not the egregious liiciis a non they 
now are. If there is any distinction, the penny people 
should have the stalls, and then, if there were room, the 
" swells " (I must use an offensive term) could come in 
for sixpence, and stand at the back. But there should 
be no diiference at all. Dives and Lazarus should sit 
together, or Dives stop away if he were afraid his fine 
linen may get soiled. Lazarus, at all events, must not 
be lost sight of, or treated to second best. The experi- 
ment of thus mingling them has been tried, I know, and 
succeeds admirably. Dives and Lazarus do hobnob; 
and though the former occasionally tenders a silver coin 
iox\i\'S> entree^ he does not feel that he is thereby entitled 
to a better seat. The committee gets the benefit of 
his liberality ; and when the accounts are audited in the 
spring, Lazarus is immensely pleased at the figure his 
pence make-. Then, again, as to the quality of the 
entertainment. Let us remember Lazarus comes there 
to be elevated. That was the theory we set out with — 
that we, by our reading, or our singing, or fiddling, or 
tootle-tooing on the cornet, could civilize our friend in 
fustian. Do not let us fall into the mistake, then, of 
descending to his standard. We want to level him up 
to ours. Give him the music we play in our own draw- 
ing-rooms ; read the choice bits of fiction or poetry to 
his wife and daughters which we should select for our 
own. Amuse his poor little children with the same 
innocent nonsense with which we treat our young people. 



144 MYSTIC LONDON. 

Above all, don't bore liim. I do not say, never' be 
serious, because it is a great mistake to think Lazarus 
can only guifaw. Read " The Death of Little Nell " or 
of Paul Dombey, and look at Mrs. Lazarus's eyes. Read 
Tom Hood's " Song of the Shirt," and see whether the 
poor seamstress out in the draughty penny seats at the 
back appreciates it or not. I did hear of one parish at 
the West End — the very same, by the way, I just now 
commended for sticking to the " penny " system — where 
Hood's " Nelly Gray," proposed to be read by the son 
of one of our best known actors, was tabooed as " un- 
edifying." Lazarus does not come to be " edified," but 
to be amused. If he can be at the same time instruct- 
ed, so much the. better; but the bitter pill must be 
highly gilded, or he will pocket his penny and spend it 
in muddy beer at the public-house. If the Penny 
Reading can prevent this — and we see no reason why it 
should not — it will have had a mission indeed. Finally, 
I feel sure that there is in this movement, and lying only 
a very little way from the surface, a wholesome lesson 
for Dives too ; and that is, how little difference there is, 
after all, between himself and Lazarus. I have been 
surprised to see how some of the more reche?'che " bits" 
of our genuine humorists have told upon the penny 
people, and won applause which the stalest burlesque 
pun or the nastiest music-hall inanity would have failed 
to elicit. Lazarus must be represented on the platform 
then, as well as comfortably located in the audience. 
He must be asked to read, or sing, or fiddle, or do 
whatever he can. If not, he will feel he is being read 
at, or sung to, or fiddled for, and will go off to the Mag- 
pie and Stump, instead of bringing missus and the little 
ones to the " pa'son's readings," Let the Penny Read 



DAKIVIXISM ON THE DEVIL. 14^ 

ing teach us the truth — and how true it is — that we are 
all " working men." What matters it whether we work 
with head or with hand — with brain or muscle ? 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

DARWINISM ON THE DEVIL. 

TT has been said — perhaps more satirically than seri- 
ously — that theology could not get on without its 
devil. Certain it is that wherever there has been a vivid 
realization of the Spirit of Light, there, as if by way of 
antithesis, there has been an equally clear recognition 
of the Power of Darkness. Ormuzd — under whatever 
name recognized — generally supposes his opponent 
Ahriman ; and there have even been times, as in the 
prevalence of the Manichean heres)'", when the Evil 
Spirit has been affected in preference to the good — 
probably only another way of saying that morals have 
been held subordinate to intellect. But I am growing 
at once prosy and digressive. 

The announcement that the " Liberal Social Union " 
would devote one of their sweetly heretical evenings at 
the Beethoven Rooms, Harley Street, to an examination 
of the Darwinian development of the Evil Spirit, was 
one not to be scorned by an inquirer into the more 
eccentric and erratic phases of theology. Literary 
engagements stood in the way — for the social heretics 
gather on a Friday — but come what might, I would heai 
them discuss diabolism. Leaving my printer's devil to 
indulge in typographical errors according to his own 



146 MYSTIC LONDON. 

sweet will (and I must confess he did wander), I pre- 
sented myself, as I thought in good time, at the portals 
of the Harley Street room, where his Satanic Majesty 
was to be heretically anatomized. But, alas ! I had not 
calculated aright the power of that particular potentate 
to " draw." No sooner had I arrived at the cloak-room 
than the very hats and umbrellas warned me of the num- 
ber of his votaries. Evening Dress was "optional;" 
and I frankly confess^ at whatever risk of his displeasure, 
that I had not deemed Mephistopheles worthy of a swal- 
low-tailed coat. I came in the garb of ordinary life ; 
and at once felt uncomfortable when, mounting the 
stairs, I was received by a portly gentleman and an 
affable lady in violent tenue de soir. The roOm was 
full to the very doors ; and as soon as I squeezed into 
earshot of the lecturer (who had already commenced his 
discourse) I was greeted by a heterodox acquaintance 
in elaborate dress-coat and rose-pink gloves. Experi- 
ence in such matters had already told me — and there- 
upon I proved it by renewed personal agony — that an 
Englishman never feels so uncomfortable as when 
dressed differently from his compeers at any kind of 

social gathering. Mrs. T asks you to dinner, and 

you go clad in the correct costume in deference to the 
prandial meal, but find all the rest in morning dress. 

Mrs. G. , on the contrary, sends you a rollicking 

note to feed with a few friends, — no party; and you go 
straight from office to find a dozen heavily-got-up people 
sniggering at your frock coat and black tie. However, 
as I said, on this occasion the lecturer. Dr. Zerffi, was 
in the thick of what proved to be a very attractive lee 
ture ; so I was not the observed of all observers foi 
more than two or three minutes, and was able to give 



DARWINISM ON THE DEVIL. 147 

him my whole attention as soon as I had recovered 
from my confusion. Dr. Zerffi said : — 

Dr. Darwin's theory of evolution and selection has 
changed our modern mode of studying the inorganic 
and organic phenomena of nature, and investigating the 
realities of truth. His theory is not altogether new, 
having been first proclaimed by Leibnitz, and followed 
up with regard to history by Giovanni Battista Vico. 
Oken and Goethe amplified it towards the end of the 
last, and at the beginning of the present century. Dar- 
win, however, has systematized the theory of evolution, 
and now the branches of human knowledge can only be 
advantageously pursued if we trace in all phenomena, 
whether material or spiritual, a beginning and a gradual 
development. One fact has prominently been estab- 
lished, that there is order in the eternal change, that 
this order is engendered by law, and that law and order 
are the criterions of an all-wise ruling Spirit pervading 
the Universe. To this positive spirit of law a spirit of 
negation, an element of rebellion and mischief, of 
mockery and selfishness, commonly called the Devil, 
has been opposed from the beginning. 

It appeared, till very lately, as though God had cre- 
ated the world only for the purpose of amusing the 
Devil, and giving him an abundance of work, all directed 
to destroying the happiness of God's finest creation — 
man. Treating the Devil from a Darwinian point of 
view, we may assert that he developed himself from the 
protoplasm of ignorance, and in the gloomy fog of fear 
aiid superstition grew by degrees into a formidable 
monster, being changed by the overheated imaginations 
of dogmatists into a reptile, an owl, a raven, a dog, a 
wolf, a lion, a centaur, a being half monkey, half man, 



148 MYSTIC LONDON. 

till, finally, he became a polite and refined human 
being. 

Man once having attained a certain state of con- 
sciousness, saw sickness, evil, and death around him, 
and as it was usual to assign to every effect some tan- 
gible cause, man developed the abstract notion of evil 
into a concrete form, which changed with the varying 
impressions of climate, food, and the state of intellectual 
progress. To the white man the Devil was black, and 
to the black man white. Originally, then, the Devil 
was merety a personification of the apparently destructive 
forces of nature. Fire was his element. The Indians 
had their Rakshas and Uragas, the Egyptians their 
Typhon, and the Persians their Devas. The Israelites 
may claim the honor of having brought the theory of 
evil into a coarse and sensual form, and the Christians 
took up this conception, and developed it with the help 
of the Gnostics, Plato, and the Fathers dogmatically into 
an entity. 

I shall not enter on a minute inquiry into the origin 
of this formidable antagonist of common sense and real 
piety ; I intend to take up the three principal phases 
of the Devil's development, at a period when he already 
appears to us as a good Christian Devil, and always 
bearing in mind Mr. Darwin's theory of evolution, I 
shall endeavor to trace spiritually the changes in the 
conceptions of evil from the Devil of Luther to that of 
Milton, and at last to that of Goethe. 

The old Jewish Rabbis and theological doctors were 
undoubtedly the first to trace, genealogically, the pedi- 
gree of the Christian Devil in its since general form. If 
we take the trouble to compare chap. i. v. 27 of Genesis 
with chap. ii. v. 21, we will find that two distinct crea- 



DARWINISM ON THE DEVIL. 14^^ 

tions of man are given. The one is different from the 
other. In the first instance we have the clear, indis- 
putable statement, " So God created man in his own 
image : " and to give greater force to this statement 
the text goes on, " in the image of God created he him; 
male and female created he them." Both man and 
woman were then created. Nothing could be plainer. 
But as though no creation of man had taken place at 
all, we find, chap. ii. v. 7 : " And the Lord formed man 
of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils 
the breath of life." This was evidently a second man, 
differently created from the first, who is stated to have 
been made *^ in the image of God himself." This sec- 
ond creature was entrusted with the nomination and 
classification of all created things ; that is, with the 
formation of language, and the laying down of the first 
principles of botany and zoology. After he had per- 
formed this arduous task it happened that "for Adam 
there was not found an help meet for him " (verse 20), 
and chap. ii. v. 21 tells us, "The Lord God caused a 
deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept ; and He 
took one of "his ribs and closed up the flesh instead 
thereof:" and verse 22, "And of the rib which the 
Lord God had taken from man made He a woman, and 
brought her unto man." Adam then joyfully exclaims 
(verse 23), " This is now bone of my bones, and flesh 
of my flesh." This cannot but lead to the conclusion 
that this woman was an altogether different creature 
from the first. The contradiction was most ingeniously 
explained by the learned Jewish Rabbis, who consid- 
ered the first woman the organic germ from which the 
special Hebrew-Christian devils were evolved. The 
Rabbis discovered that the name of the first woman 



1^0 MYSTIC LONDON. 

was"Lilith"* (the nightly); they knew positively — ■ 
and who can disprove their assertion ? — that she was 
the most perfect beauty, more beautiful than Eve ; she 
had long waving hair, bright eyes, red lips and cheeks, 
and a charmingly finished form and complexion ; but 
having been created at the same moment as the first 
man, and like him, in the image of God, she refused to 
become man's wife ; she objected to being subordinate 
to the male part of creation — she was, in fact, the first 
strong-minded woman, claiming the same rights as man, 
though a woman in body and form. Under these cir- 
cumstances the existence of the human race was 
deemed to be an impossibility, and therefore the Lord 
had to make good his error, and He created Eve as the 
completing part of man. The first woman left her co- 
equally created male, and was changed into an enor- 
mous, most beautiful, and seducing " She Devil," and 
her very thoughts brought forth daily a legion of devils 
— incarnations of pride, vanity, conceit, and unnatural- 
ness. Happily these devils were so constituted that 
they devoured one another. But in their rage they 
could take possession of others, and more especially 
entered little children — boys under three days old, girls 
under twenty days — and devoured them. This myth, 
by means of evolution and the law of action and re- 
action, engendered the further legend about the exist- 
ence of three special angels who acted as powerful an- 
tidotes to these devils, and whose names, " Senoi, San- 
senoi, and Sanmangeloph," if written on a piece of 

*The word is found in Isaiah xxxiv. 14. Translated in the 
Vulgate as " Lamia ; " in Luther's translation as " Kobold ; " in 
the English version as "screech-owl ; " and in others as " an ugly 
night-bird." 



p 



DAR WINISM ON THE DE VIL. i ^ i 



parchment suspended round the neck of children af- 
forded certain protection against them. 

The origin of the Devil may thus be traced to the 
first vain contempt for the eternal laws of nature. The 
woman, refusing to be a woman, engenders devils ; the 
man, trying to be God, loses paradise and his inno- 
cence, for the element of the supernatural intruded 
upon liim and abstracted his thoughts from this earth. 
These were the half idealistic and half realistic ele- 
ments from which the three greatest spiritual incarna- 
tions of the Evil Spirit sprung up. Luther took the 
Evil Spirit as a bodily entity, with big horns, fiery 
eyes, a reddish, protruding tongue, a long tail, and the 
hoof of a horse. In this latter attribute we trace at 
once the Kentaur element of ancient times. Through 
nearly one thousand three hundred years from Tertul- 
lian and Thaumaturgus down to Luther, every one was 
accustomed to look upon life as one great battle witn 
tens of thousands of devils, assaulting, harassing, an- 
noying, and seducing humanity. All fought, quarrelled, 
talked, and wrestled with the Devil. He was more 
spoken of in the pulpits of the Christian Churches, 
written about in theological and scientific books, than 
God or Christ. All misfortunes were attributed to him. 
Thunder and lightning, hailstorms and the rinderpest, 
the hooping cough and epileptic fits were all the Devil's 
work. A man who suffered from madness was said to 
be possessed by a legion of Evil Spirits. The Devil 
settled himself in the gentle dimples of a pretty girl 
with the same ease and comfort as in the wrinkles of 
an old woman. Everything that was inexplicable was 
evil. Throughout the Middle Ages the masses and the 
majority of their learned theological teachers believed 



152 MYSTIC LONDON. 

the Greek and Latin classics were inspired by Evil 
Spirits ; that sculptures or paintings, if beautiful, were 
of evil ; that all cleverness in Mathematics, Chemistry, 
or Medicine proved the presence of the corrupting Evil 
Spirit working in man. Any bridge over a chasm or a 
rapid river was the work of the Devil ; even the most 
beautiful Gothic cathedrals, like those of Cologne and 
St. Stephen at Vienna were constructed by architects 
who served their apprenticeship in the infernal regions. 
The Devil sat grinning on the inkstands of poets and 
learned men, dictating to the poor deluded mortals, as 
the price for their souls, charming love-songs or deep 
theological and philosophical essays. It was extremely 
dangerous during this period of man's historical evolu- 
tion to be better or wiser than the ignorant masses. 
Learning, talent, a superior power of reasoning, love for 
truth, a spirit of inquiry, the capacity of making money 
by clever trading, an artistic turn of mind, success in 
life, even in the Church, were only so many proofs that 
the soul had been sold to some dwarfish or giant mes- 
senger from Lucifer, who could appear in a thousand 
different forms. Man was, since his assumed Fall, the 
exclusive property of the coarse and vulgar conception 
of the Evil Spirit. Luther was full of these ideas, he 
was brought up in this belief, and though he uncon- 
sciously felt that the Devil ought to be expelled from 
our creed, he did not dare to attempt the reform of hu- 
manity by annihilating the mischief-maker : he could 
not rob man of his dearest spiritual possession ; had he 
thought of consigning the Devil to the antediluvian 
period of our moral and social formation, he never 
could have succeeded in his reform. The Devil, in 
fact, was his strongest helpmate ; he could describe the 



DARWINISM ON THE DEVIL. 1^3 

ritual of the Romish Church as the work of the Evil 
Spirit, produced to delude mankind. The Devil had 
his Romish prayers, his processions, his worship of 
relics, his remission of sins, his confessional, his infer- 
nal synods ; he was to Luther an active, rough, and 
material incarnation of the roaring lion of the Scrip- 
tures in the shape of the Romish Church, walking 
about visibly, tangibly, bodily amongst men, devouring 
all who believed in the Pope, and who disbelieved in 
this stupid phantom of a dogmatically blinded imagina- 
tion. 

The Evolution-theory may be clearly traced in the 
two next conceptions : Milton's Satan and Goethe's 
Mephistopheles. They differ as strongly as the periods 
and the poems in which they appear. Milton's Satan 
loses the vulgar flesh and bone, horn and hoof nature 
— he is an epic character ; whilst Goethe's Devil is an 
active dramatic entity of modern times. Milton's rep- 
resentative of evil is a very powerful conception — it is 
evil m abstracto ; whilst Mephistopheles is evil in con- 
creto — the intelligible, tangible Devil, evolved by the 
power of selection from an antediluvian monster, and 
transformed through a civilizing process of at least six 
thousand years into its present form. Milton's Satan 
is a debased intellect who in his boundless ambition is 
still a supernatural being. Mephistopheles is the incar- 
nation of our complicated modern social evils, full of 
petty tricks and learned quotations ; he piously turns 
up his eyes, he lies, doubts, calumniates, seduces, philoso- 
phizes, sneers, but all in a polite and highly educated 
way; he is a scholar, a divine, a politician, a diplomatist. 
Satan is capable of wild enthusiasm, he sometimes remem- 
bers his bright sinless past; "from the lowest deep," 



1^4 MYSTIC LONDON. 

he yearns, " once more to lift himself up, in spite of fate, 
nearer to his ancient seat ;" — he hopes to re-enter heav- 
en, " to purge off his gloom ; " some remnant of heavenly 
innocence still clings to him, for though fallen^ he is still 
an afigel ! Mephistopheles in his real nature is without 
any higher aspirations, he argues with a sarcastic smile 
on his lips, he is ironical with sophisticated sharpness. 
Satan has unconsciously gigantic ideas, he is ready to 
wrestle with God for the dominion of heaven. Mephis- 
topheles is perfectly conscious of his littleness as op- 
posed to our better intellectual nature, and does evil 
for evil's sake. Satan is sublime through the grandeur 
of his primitive elements, pride and ambition. Me- 
phistopheles is only grave in his pettiness ; he does not 
refuse an orgie with drunken students, indulges in jokes 
with monkeys, works miracles in the witch's kitchen, 
delights in the witch's " one-time-one ; " distributes little 
tracts "to stir up the witch's heart with special fire." 
Satan has nothing vulgar in him : he is capable of melan- 
choly feelings, he can be pathetic and eloquent. Mephis- 
topheles laughs at the stupidity of the world, and at his 
own. Satan believes in God and in himself, whilst Me- 
phistoples is the " Spirit that denies ; " he beheves 
neither in God nor in heaven nor in hell ; he does not 
believe in his own entity — he is no supernatural, fan- 
tastic being, but man incarnate : he is the evil part of a 
good whole, which loses its entity when once seen and 
recognized in its real nature ; for Mephistopheles in 
reality is our own ignorant, besotted animal nature, cul- 
tivated and developed at the expense of our intellectual 
part. 

Luther's devil is the outgrowth of humanity in long- 
clothes. Man, ignorant of the forces of the Cosmos, 



DARWINISM ON THE DEVIL. 155 

blinded by theological dialectics and metaphysical sub- 
tleties, incapable of understanding the real essence of 
our moral and intellectual nature, philosophically un- 
trained to observe that evil is but a sequence of the dis- 
turbed balance between our double nature — spirit and 
matter — attributed all mischief in the intellectual as 
well as in our social spheres to an absolute powerful 
being who continually tormented him. 

Milton's Satan is the poetical conception of man de- 
veloped from an infant in long-clothes into a boisterous 
but dreamy youth, ascribing to every incomprehensible 
effect an arbitrary, poetical cause. Goethe's Mephisto- 
pheles, lastly, is the truthful conception of evil as it 
really exists in a thousand forms, evolved from our own 
misunderstood and artificially and dogmatically dis- 
torted nature. 

Goethe, in destroying the Devil as such, consigned 
him to the primeval myths and legends of ignorance and 
fear, and has shown us the real nature of the evil. 

What then is the Devil ? 

The Devil took, as I said in the beginning, his origin 
in our blinded senses, in an undue preponderance of 
that which is material in us over that which is intellec- 
tual. The moment we look the Evil Spirit in the face, 
he vanishes as an absolute being and becomes — 

A portion of that power 
Which wills the bad and works the good at every hour. 

After having been exposed during several periods of 
generations to new conditions, thus rendering a great 
amount of variation possible, the Devil has developed 
from a monster into a monkey, and from a monkey into 
a man endowed with the nature of a monkey and the 



156 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



propensities of a monster. In the State and in the 
Church, in Arts and Sciences, the Devil is the principle 
of injustice, hypocrisy, ugliness, and ignorance, Goethe 
has annihilated the ideal poetical grandeur of Milton's 
Satan ; he has stripped Luther's Devil of his vulgar 
realism ; Goethe has driven Satan from an imaginary 
hell, where he preferred to rule instead of worshipping 
and serving in heaven, and with the sponge of common 
sense he wiped the horned monster, drawn by the imag- 
ination of dogmatists, from the black board of igno- 
rance. In banishing the Evil Spirit into the dominion 
of myths, Goethe showed him in his real nature. Dar- 
win displaced man from the exalted pedestal of a spe- 
cial creation, and endeavored to trace him as the devel- 
opment of cosmical elements. Darwin enabled us to 
look upon man as the completing link in the great chain 
of the gradual evolution of the life-giving forces of the 
Universe, and he rendered thus our position more com- 
prehensible and natural. Goethe, in proving that the 
Evil Spirit of ancient and Hebrew-Christian times was 
a mere phantom of an ill-regulated fantasy, taught us to 
look for the real origin of evil. What was a metaphys- 
ical incomprehensibility became an intelligible reality. 
The Demon can be seen in " Faust " as in a mirror, and 
in glancing into it we behold our Darwinian progenitor, 
the animal, face to face. Before the times of Goethe, 
with very few exceptions, the Evil Spirit was an entity 
with whom any one might become familiar — in fact, the 
" spirUiis fa7niliaris " of old. The Devil spoke, roared, 
whispered, could sign contracts. We were able to yield 
our soul to him ; and he could bodily enter our body. 
The Devil was a corporeal entity. The rack, water, and 
fire were used to expel him from sorcerers and witches, 



DARWINISM OJV THE DEVIL. 157 

and to send him into all sorts of unclean animals. 
Goethe, in unmasking this phantom, introduced him not 
as something without; but as an element within us. The 
service rendered to humanity in showing us the true 
nature of evil is as grand as the service rendered by 
Mr. Darwin in assigning to man his place ifi nature, and 
not above nature. It is curious that those who have 
most of the incorrigible and immovable animal nature 
in them should protest with the greatest vehemence and 
clamor against this theory. They think by asserting 
their superiority, based on a special creation, to become 
at once special and superior beings, and prefer this po- 
sition to trying, through a progressive development in 
science and knowledge, in virtue and honesty, to prove 
the existence of the higher faculties with which man has 
been endowed through his gradual development from 
the lowest phases of living creatures to the highest. In 
assuming the Devil to be something absolute and posi- 
tive, and not something relative and negative, man 
hoped to be better able to grapple with him. Mephis- 
topheles is nothing personal ; he can, like the Creator 
himself, be only traced in his works. The Devil lurks 
beneath the venerable broadcloth of an intolerant and 
ignorant priest ; he uses the seducing smiles of a wicked 
beauty ; he stirs the blood of the covetous and grasp- 
ing ; he strides through the gilded halls of ambitious 
emperors and ministers, who go with " light hearts " to 
kill thousands of human beings with newly-invented 
infernal machines ; he works havoc in the brains of the 
vain. The Devil shuffles the cards for the gambler, 
and destroys our peace whether he makes us win or 
lose on the turf; he sits joyfully grinning on the tops of 
bottles and tankards filled with alcoholic drinks; he 



J ^8 MYSTIC LONDON. 

entices us on Sunday to shut our museums and open 
our gin-palaces ; to neglect the education of the masses j 
and then prompts us to accuse them, with hypocritical 
respectability of drunkenness and stupidity. It is the 
Devil who turns us into friends of lapdogs and makes 
us enemies of the homeless. The Devil is the greatest 
master in dogmatism ; he creates sects who, in the name 
of love and humility, foster hatred and pride ; the- 
Devil encloses men in a magic circle on the barren 
heath of useless speculation ; drives them round and 
round like blinded horses in a mill, starting from one 
point, and after miles and miles of travel and fatigue, 
leading us to the point, sadder but not wiser, from 
which we set out. The Devil makes us quarrel wheth- 
er we ought to have schools with or without bigoted re- 
ligious teachings ; he burns incense to stupefy our 
senses, lights candles to obscure our sight, amuses the 
masses with buffooneries to prevent them from thinking, 
draws us away from common-sense morality, and leads 
us under the pretext of a mystic and symbolic religion, 
to the confessional, the very hothouse of mischief. Sa- 
tan in all his shapes and forms as he rules the world 
has been described by Goethe as Egotism. Selfishness 
is his element and real nature. Selfishness not yet 
realizing the divine, because so entirely humane, com- 
mand — " Do unto others as you wish that they should 
do unto you." Selfishness is the only essence of evil. 
Selfishness has divided men into different nations, and 
fosters in them pride, envy, jealousy, and hatred. Mr 
Darwin has shown that one animal preys on the other, 
that the weaker species has to yield to the stronger. 
Goethe again has shown us how the Evil Spirit drags 
us throudi life's wild scenes and its flat unmeaninainess, 



I 

m DARWINISM ON THE DEVIL. i^^j 

to seek mere sensual pleasures and to neglect altogether 
our higher and better nature, which is the outgrowth of 
our more complicated, more highly developed organiza- 
tion. Were we only to recognize this, our real nature, 
we should leave less to chance and prejudices ; were 
we to study man from a physiological, psychological, 
and honestly historical point of view, we should soon 
eliminate selfishness from among us, and be able to 
appreciate what is really the essence of evil. The more 
nearly we approach Darwin's primitive man, the ape, 
the nearer do we draw to the Mephistopheles who shows 
us his exact nature with impudent sincerity in Goethe's 
"Faust." 

That which changes our Psyche, that is our intellec- 
tual faculty with its airy wings of imagination, its 
yearnings for truth, into an ugly, submissive, crawl- 
ing worm, is heartless selfishness. Not without reason 
is poor guileless Margaret horrified at Mephistopheles. 
She shudders, hides herself on the bosom of Faust, like 
a dove under the wing of an eagle, and complains that 
the Evil Spirit — 

.... Ahvays wears such mocking grin, 
Half cold, half grim. 

One sees that nought has interest for him ; 
'Tis writ on his brow, and can't be mistaken, 
No soul in him can love awaken. 

When all goes wrong, when religious, social and 
, political animosities and hatred disturb the peace ; 
when unintelligible controversies on the inherited sin, 
the origin of evil, justification and transubstantiation, 
" grace and free vvill," the creative and the created, 
mystic incantations, real and unreal presences, the like 
but not equal, the affirmative and the negative natures 



i6o 



MYSTIC LONDON-: 



of God and man confuse the finite brains of infinite 
talkers and repeaters of the same things ; when they 
quarrel about the wickedness of the hen who dared 
to lay an ^gg on the Sabbath ; when the glaring torch 
of warfare is kindled by the lire of petty animosities, 
then the Evil Spirit of egotism celebrates its most glori- 
ous festivals. 

Who can banish this monster, this second and worse 
part of our nature ? To look upon it from a Darwinian 
point of view. Goethe saves his fallen Faust through 
useful occupation, through honest hard work for the 
benefit of mankind. The more we make ourselves 
acquainted with evil, the last remnant of our animal 
nature, in a rational and not mystic dogmatical sense, 
the less we exalt ourselves as exceptional creatures above 
nature, the easier it must be for us to dry up the source 
of superstition and ignorance which serves to nourish 
this social monster. 

Let our relations to each other be based on " mutual 
love," for God is love, and selfishness as the antagonist 
of love, and the Devil as the antagonist of God, will 
both vanish. 

Let us strive to vanquish our unnatural social organi- 
zation by a natural, social, but, at the same time, liberal 
union of all into one common brotherhood, and the roar- 
ing lion will be silenced for ever. 

Let us purify society of all its social, or rather un- 
social, iniquities and falsehoods, of all ingratitude and 
envy, in striving for an honest regeneration of our- 
selves, and through ourselves of humanity at large, con- 
vincing one another that man has developed by degrees 
into earth's fairest creature, destined for good and 
happiness, and not for evil and wretchedness, and there 
will be an end of the Devil and all his deviltries. 



FECULIAK PEOPLE. i6j 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

PECULIAR PEOPLE. 

TN this title, be it distinctly understood, no reference 
is intended to those anti-TEscul apian persons who, 
from time to time, sacrifice to Moloch among the Essex 
marshes. It is not necessary to journey even as far as 
Pkunstead in search of peculiarity, since the most mani- 
fold and ever varjdng types of it lie at one's very doors. 
And here, at the outset, without quite endorsing the 
maxim that genius is always eccentric, let it it be con- 
fessed that a slight deviation from the beaten track is 
generally apt to be interesting. When we see the 
photograph of some distinguished artist, musician, or 
poet, and find the features very like those of the pork 
butcher in the next street_, or the footman over the way, 
we are consc-ious of a feeling of disappointment almost 
amounting to a personal grievance. Mr. Carlyle and 
Algernon Swinburne satisfy us. They look as we feel 
graphic writers and erotic poets ought to look. Not so 
the literary females who affect the compartment labelled 
" For ladies only " in the reading room of the British 
Museum or on the Metropolitan Railway. They are 
mostly like one's maiden aunts, and savor far less of 
the authoress than some of the charming girls who 
studiously avoid their exclusive locale^ and evidently use 
their reading ticket only to cover with an appearance of 
propriety a most unmistakable flirtation. This they 
carry on sotto voce with ardent admirers of the male sex, 



J 52 MYSTIC LONDON. 

who, though regular frequenters of the reading room, 
are no more literary than themselves. One might pick 
out a good many peculiar people from that learned re- 
treat — that poor scholar's club room ; but let us rather 
avoid any such byways of life, and select our peculiars 
from the broad highway. Hunting there, Diogenes- 
wise, with one's modest lantern, in search — not of hon- 
est — but eccentric individuals. 

And first of all, having duly attended to the ladies 
at the outset, let there be " Place for the Clergy.'* 
There is my dear friend the Rev. Gray Kidds, the best 
fellow breathing, but from a Diogenes point of view, 
decidedly eccentric. Gray Kidds is one of those indi- 
viduals whose peculiarity it is never to have been a boy. 
Kidds at fifteen had whiskers as voluminous as he 
now has at six-and twenty, and as he gambolled heavily 
amongst his more puerile schoolfellows, visitors to the 
playground used to ask the assistant masters who that 
man was playing with the boys. They evidently had 
an uneasy notion that a private lunatic asylum formed 
a branch of the educational establishment, and that 
Gray Kidds was a harmless patient allowed to join the 
boys in their sports. Gray Kidds was and is literally 
harmless. He grew up through school and college, 
innocently avoiding all those evils which proved the ruin 
of many who were deemed far wiser than himself. He 
warbled feebly on the flute, and was adored as a curate, 
not only for his tootle-tooings, but for his diligent pres- 
ence at mothers' meetings, and conscientious labors 
among the poor. A preacher Kidds never pretended 
to be ; but he had the singular merit of brevity, and 
crowded more harmless heresies into ten minutes' pulpit 
oratory than Colenso or Voysey could have done in 



PECULIAR PEOPLE. 163 

double the time. The young ladies made a dead set at 
him, of course, for Kidds was in every respect eligible • 
and he let them stroke him like a big pet lamb, but 
there matters ended. Kidds never committed himself. 
He is now the incumbent of a pretty church in the 
suburbs, built for him by his aunt, and, strange to say, 
the church fills. Whether it is that his brevity is attrac- 
tive, or his transparent goodness compensates for his 
other peculiarities, certainly he has a congregation ; 
and if you polled that congregation, the one point on 
which all would agree, in addition to his eligibility or 
innocence, would be that the Rev. Gray Kidds was "so 
funny." 

And now, for our second type of peculiarity, let us 
beat back for one moment to the fair sex again. Mrs. 
Ghoul is the reverse of spirituelle ; but she is something 
more — she is spiritualistic. She devoutly believes that 
the spirits of deceased ancestors come at her bidding, 
and tilt the table, move furniture insanely about, or 
write idiotic messages automatically. She is perfectly 
serious. She does " devoutly " believe this. It 
is her creed. It is a comfort to her. It is ex- 
tremely difficult to reconcile such a source of comfort 
with any respect for one's departed relatives, but that is 
Mrs. Ghoul's peculiarity and qualification for a niche 
amongst our originals. 

Miss Deedy, on the other hand, is ecclesiastical to the 
backbone. Miss Deedy ruins her already feeble health 
with early mattins (she insists on the double t) and fre- 
quent fasts. Be3^ond an innocuous flirtation with the 
curate at decorations, or a choral meeting, Miss Deedy 
has as few sins as most of us to answer for ; but, from 
her frequent penances, she might be a monster of 



164 



MYSTIC LONDON 



iniquity. She is known to confess, and is suspected of 
wearing sackcloth. Balls and theatres she eschews as 
" worldly," and yet she is only just out of her teens. 
She would like to be a nun, she says, if the habits were 
prettier, and they allowed long curls down the back, and 
Gainsboroughs above the brow. As it is. Miss Deedy 
occupies a somewhat abnormal position, dangling, like 
Mahomet's coffin, between the Church and the world. 
That, again, is Miss Deedy's peculiarity. 

Miss Wiggles is a " sensitive." That is a new voca- 
tion struck out by the prolific ingenuity of the female 
mind. Commonplace doctors would simply call her 
" hysterical ; " but she calls herself magnetic. She is 
stout and inclined to a large appetite, particularly affect- 
ing roast pork with plenty of seasoning ; but she passes 
readily into " the superior condition " under the manip- 
ulations of a male operator. She makes nothing, save 
notoriety, by her clairvoyance and other peculiarities ; 
but she z> very peculiar, though the type of a larger class 
than is perhaps imagined in this highly sensational age 
of ours. 

Peculiar boys, too — ^what lots of them there are ! What 
is called affectation in a girl prevails to quite as large an 
extent in the shape of endless peculiarities among boys. 
A certain Dick (his name is Adolphus, but he is uni- 
versally, and for no assignable reason, known as Dick) 
rejoices in endorsing Darwinism by looking and acting 
like a human gorilla. Dick is no fool, but assumes that 
virtue though he has it not. To see him mumbling his 
food at meals, or making mops and mows at the wall, 
you would think him qualified for Earlswood ; but if it 
comes to polishing off a lesson briskly, or being mulct of 
his pudding or pocket-money. Master Dick accomplishes 



INTER VIE WING AN AS TROLOGER. 1 65 

the polishing process with a rapidity that gives the He to 
his Darwinian assumption. 

Well, they are a source of infinite fun, these eccentrics 
— the comets of our social system. They have, no 
doubt, an object in their eccentricity, a method in theii 
madness, which we prosaic planetary folks cannot 
fathom. At all events, they amuse us and don't harm 
themselves. They are uniformly happy and contented 
with themselves. Of them assuredly is true, and with- 
out the limitation he appends, Horace's affirmation, 
Duke est desipere, which Mr. Theodore Martin trans- 
lates, " 'Tis pleasing at times to be slightly insane." 



CHAPTER XXV. 

INTERVIEWING AN ASTROLOGER. 

T7OR several years — in fact ever since my first ac 
quaintance with these " occult " matters whereinto 1 
am now such a veteran investigator — my great wish has 
been to become practically acquainted with some Pro- 
fessor of Astral Science. One friend, indeed, I had who 
had devoted a long lifetime to this and kindred subjects, 
and of whom I have to speak anon ; but he had never 
utilized his knowledge so as to become the guide, 
philosopher, and friend of amorous housemaids on the 
subject of their matrimonial alliances, or set himself to 
discover petty larcenies for a fee of half-a-crown. He 
assured me, however, that the practice of astrology was 
as rife as ever in London at this moment, and that 
businesses in that line were bought and sold for sterling 



1 66 MYSTIC LONDON. 

coin of the realm, just as though they had been " cor- 
ner " pubHcs, or " snug concerns " in the cheesemon- 
gery line. All this whetted my appetite for inquiry, 
and seeing one Professor Wilson advertise persistently 
in the Medium to the effect that " the celebrated Astrol- 
oger may be consulted on the events of life " from two 
to nine p.m., I wrote to Professor Wilson asking for an 
interview ; but the celebrated astrologer did not favor me 
with a reply. 

Foiled in my first attempt I waited patiently for about 
a year, and then broke ground again — I will not say 
whether with Professor Wilson, or some other prac- 
titioner of astral science. I will call my Archimago 
Professor Smith, of Newington Causeway, principally 
for the reason that this is neither the real name nor the 
correct address. I have no wish to advertise any 
wizard gratuitously ; nor would it be fair to him, since, 
as will be seen from the sequel, his reception of me was 
such as to make it probable that he would have an in- 
convenient number of applicants on the conditions ob- 
served at my visit. 

Availing myself, then, of the services of my friend 
above mentioned, I arranged that we should together 
pay a visit to Professor Smith, of Newington Causeway, 
quite "permiscuous," as Mrs. Gamp would say. My 
companion would go with his own horoscope already 
constructed, as he happened to know the exact hour 
and minute of his birth — ^particulars as to which I only 
possessed the vaguest information, which is all I fancy 
most of us have ; though there was one circumstance 
connected with my own natal day which went a long 
way towards " fixing " it. 

It was on a Monday evening that I visited this modern 



INTERVIEWING AN ASTROLOGER. 167 

Delphic oracle ; and, strangely enough, as is often the 
case, other events seemed to lead up to this one. The 
very lesson on Sunday evening was full of astrology. 
It v/as, I may mention, the story of the handwriting on 
the wall and the triumph of Daniel over the magicians. 
Then I took up my Chaucer on Monday morning ; and 
instead of the " Canterbury Tales," opened it at the 
" Treatise on the Astrolabe," which I had never read 
before, but devoured them as greedily as no doubt did 
"Little Lowis," to whom it is addressed. All this tended 
to put me in a proper frame of mind for my visit to 
Newington ; so, after an early tea, we took my friend's 
figure of his nativity with us, and went. 

Professor Smith, we found, lived in a cosy house in 
the main road, the parlors whereof he devoted to the 
purposes of a medical magnetist, which was his calling, 
as inscribed upon the wire blinds of the ground floor 
front. We were ushered at once into the professor's 
presence by a woman who, I presume, was his wife — a 
quiet respectable body with nothing uncanny about her. 
The front parlor was comfortably furnished and scru- 
pulously clean, and the celebrated Professor himself, a 
pleasant, elderly gentleman, was sitting over a manu- 
script which he read by the light of a Queen's reading 
lamp. There was not, on the one hand, any charlatan 
assumption in his get-up, nor, on the other, was there 
that squalor and neglect of the decencies of life which I 
have heard sometimes attaches to the practitioners in 
occult science. Clad in a light over-coat, with specta- 
cles on nose, and bending over his MS., Professor 
Smith might have been a dissenting parson en deshabille 
*' getting off " his Sunday discourse, or a village school- 
master correcting the " themes " of his pupils. He was 



1 68 MYSTIC LONDON.. 

neither ; he was a nineteenth century astrologer, calcu- 
lating the probabilities of success for a commercial 
scheme, the draft prospectus of which was the document 
over which he pored. As he rose to receive us, I was 
almost disappointed to find that he held no v/and, wore 
no robe, and had no volume of mystic lore by his side. 
The very cat that emerged from underneath his table, 
and rubbed itself against my legs, was not of the ortho- 
dox sable hue, but simple tabby and white. 

My friend opened the proceedings by producing the 
figure of his nativity, and saying he had come to ask a 
question in horary astrology relative to a certain scheme 
about which he was anxious, such anxiety constituting 
what he termed a " birth of the mind." Of course this 
was Dutch to me, and I watched to see whether the 
Professor would be taken off his guard by finding he 
was in presence of one thoroughly posted up in astral 
science. Not in the least ; he greeted him as a brother 
chip, and straightway the two fell to discussing the 
figure. The Professor worked a new one, which he 
found to differ in some slight particulars from the one 
my friend had brought. Each, however, had worked it 
by logarithms, and there was much talk of " trines " 
and " squares " and " houses," which I could not under- 
stand ; but eventually the coveted advice was given by 
the Professor and accepted by my friend as devoutly as 
though it had been a response of the Delphic oracle 
itself. The business would succeed, but not without 
trouble, and possibly litigation on my friend's part. He 
was to make a call on a certain day and "push the mat- 
ter " a month afterwards ; all of which he booked in a 
business-like manner. This took a long time, for the 
Professor was perpetually making pencil signs on the 



INTERVIEWING AN ASTROLOGER. i6g 

figure he had constructed, and the two also discussed 
Zadkiel, Raphael, and other astronomers they had 
mutually known. Continual reference had to be made 
to the "Nautical Almanack ;" but by-and-by my friend's 
innings was over and mine commenced. I have said 
that I did not know the exact hour and minute of my 
birth, and when, with appropriate hesitation, I named 
the I St of April as the eventful day, the Professor looked 
at me for a moment with a roguish twinkle of the eye 
as though to ascertain that I was not poking fun at him. 
I assured him, however, that such was the inauspicious 
era of my nativity, and moreover that I was born so 
closely on the confines of March 31 — I do not feel it 
necessary to specify the year — as to make it almost du- 
bious whether I could claim the honors of April-Fool- 
dom. This seemed enough for him — though he warned 
me that the absence of the exact time might lead to 
some vagueness in his communications — and he pro- 
ceeded forthwith to erect my figure \ which, by the way, 
looked to me very much like making a "figure" in 
Euclid ; and I peered anxiously to see whether mine 
bore any resemblance to the Pons Asinorum ! 

I feared I had led my philosopher astray altogether 
when the first item of information he gave me was that, 
at about the age of twenty-one. I had met with some 
accident to my arm, a circumstance which I could not 
recall to memory. Several years later I broke my leg, 
but I did not tell him that. Going further back, he 
informed me that about the age of fourteen, if I hap- 
pened to be apprenticed, or in any way placed under 
authority, I kicked violently over the traces ; which was 
quite true, inasmuch as I ran away from school twice at 
that precise age, so that w\\ astrologer scored one. K\ 



I'JQ 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



twenty-eight I married (true), and at thirty-two things 
were particularly prosperous with me— a fact which I 
was also constrained to acknowledge correct. Then 
came a dreadful mistake. If ever I had anything to do 
with building or minerals, I should be very successful. 
I never had to do with building save once in my life, 
and then Mr. Briggs's loose tile v/as nothing to the diffi- 
culties in which I became involved. Minerals I had 
never dabbled in beyond the necessary consumption of 
coals for domestic purposes. I had an uncle who inter- 
ested himself in my welfare some years ago- — this was 
correct-^-and something was going to happen to my 
father's sister at Midsummer, 1876. This, of course, I 
cannot check ; but I trust, for the sake of my venerable 
relation, it may be nothing prejudicial.* I was also to 
suffer from a slight cold about the period of my birth- 
day in that same year, and was especially to beware 
of damp feet. My eldest brother, if I had one, he said, 
had probably died, which was again correct ; and if my 
wife caught cold she suffered in her throat, which piece 
of information, if not very startling, I am also con- 
strained to confess is quite true. Then followed a most 
delicate piece of information, which I blush as I commit 
to paper. I wished to marry when I was twenty-one, 
but circumstances prevented. Then it was that the 
memories of a certain golden-haired first love came 
back through the vista of memory. I was then a Fel- 
low of my College, impecunious except as regarded my 
academical stipend, so the young lady took advice, and 
paired off with a well-to-do cousin. Sic transit gloria 
mundi I We are each of us stout, unromantic family 
people now ; but the reminiscence made me feel quite 
romantic for the moment in that jrround floor in New- 



INTER I 'IE IVIA'G AN AS TROLOGER. j 7 1 

ington Causeway ; and I was inclined to say, " A Daniel 
come to judgment I " but I checked myself,aDd remarked, 
sotto voce^ in the vernacular, " Right again, Mr. Smith! " 

Before passing on to analyze me personally, he re- 
marked that my wife's sister and myself were not on 
the best of terms. I owned that words had passed 
between us ; and then he told me that in my cerebral 
development there was a satisfactory fusion of caution 
and combativeness. I was not easily knocked over, or, 
if so, had energy to get up again. This energy was to 
tell in the future. This, I believe, is a very useful 
feature of horoscopic revelation. Next year was to be 
particularly prosperous. I should travel a good deal — ■ 
had travelled somewhat this year, and was just now 
going to take a short journey ; but I should travel a 
great deal more next year. I own to asking myself 
whether this could bear any reference to the Pontigny 
Pilgrimage in which I shared this year, and the possible 
pilgrimage to Rome next summer, and also a projected 
journey to Scotland by the Limited Mail next Tuesday 
evening! On the whole, my astrologer had scored a 
good many points. 

The most marvellous revelation of all yet remains to 
be made, however. When we rose to go we each of us 
endeavored to force a fee on Professor Smith, but noth- 
ing would induce liim to receive a farthing ! I had got 
all my revelations, my " golden " memories of the past, 
my bright promises of the future free, gratis, for noth- 
ing ! It will be evident, then, why I do not give this 
good wizard's address, lest I inundate him with gratuit- 
ous applicants, and why I therefore veil his personality 
under the misleading title of Professor Smith, of New 
ington Causeway. 



172 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



A BARMAID SHOW. 



nPHE present age, denounced by some ungenial cen- 
sors as the age of shams, may be described by 
more kindly critics as emphatically an age of " shows." 
Advancing from the time-honored shows of Flora and 
Pomona — if not always improving on the type — and so 
on from the cattle show, suggestive of impending Christ- 
mas fare, we have had horse shows, dog shows, and 
bird shows. To these the genius of Barnum added baby 
shows ; and, if we are not misinformed, a foreign firm, 
whose names have become household words amongst 
us, originated, though not exactly in its present form, 
the last kind of show which has been acclimatized in 
England — an exhibition of barmaids. We had two 
baby shows in one year — one at Highbury Barn, by Mr. 
Giovannelli ; the other at North Woolwich Gardens, by 
Mr. Holland ; and it is to the talent of this latter gentle- 
man, in the way of adaptation, that we owe the exhi- 
bition of young ladies "practising at the bar." From 
babies to barmaids is indeed a leap, reversing the ordi- 
nary process of going from the sublime to the ridicu- 
lous ; for while to all but appreciative mammas those 
infantile specimens of humanity savor largely of the ri- 
diculous, there can be no question that the present 
generation of dames de coniptoir is a very sublime article 
indeed. I do not say this in derision, nor am I among 
those who decry the improvements introduced during 



A BARMAID SHOW. ly^ 

the last few years, both into refreshment bars them- 
selves, and, notably, into the class of ladies who preside 
over them. The discriminating visitor will probably 
prefer to receive his sandwich and glass of bitter at the 
hands of S. pretty barmaid rather than from an oleagin- 
ous potman in his shirt sleeves ; and the sherry-cobbler 
acquires a racier flavor from the arch looks of the Hebe 
who dispenses it. If silly young men do dawdle at the 
bar for the sake of the sirens inside, and occasionally, 
as we have known to be the case, take unto themselves 
these same sirens " for better or for worse," we can only 
cite the opinion of well-informed authorities, that very 
possibly the young gentlemen in question might have 
gone farther and fared worse, and that it is not always 
the young lady who has, in such a case, the best of the 
bargain. 

" So, then, the " Grand Barmaid Contest " opened ; 
and in spite of the very unmistakable appearance put 
in by Jupiter Fluvius, a numerous assemblage gathered 
in the North Woolwich Gardens to inaugurate a festi- 
val which, whatever else we may think of it, is at all 
events sui generis. Prizes to the value of ;^3oo were to 
be presented to the successful candidates, varying from 
a purse of twenty sovereigns and a gold watch and 
chain, down to " a purse of two sovereigns," with 
" various other prizes, consisting of jewelry, &c." 

Among the conditions, it was required that every 
young lady should be over sixteen years of age ; that 
she should be dressed in plaift but good articles of at- 
tire, " in which a happy blending of colors without 
prominent display is most suitable ;" and it was more- 
over stipulated that each " young lady " should " ingra- 
tiate herself with the public in the most affable man- 



174 MYSTIC LONDON.. 

ner at her command, without undue forwardness, oi 
frivoHty, but still retaining a strict attention to busi- 
ness." No young lady was permitted to take part in 
the contest unless she had been in the refreshment 
business for twelve months, and could produce good 
testimonials of character. 

Upwards of seven hundred applications were made, 
out of which Mr. Holland selected fifty. Whence the 
large number of rejections " deponent sayeth not." Of 
these twenty- eight actually put in an appearance at 
three p. m. on the opening day, and four were expected 
to join in a day or two. Every visitor is provided with 
a voting ticket, which he hands to the lady of his ad- 
miration, and which counts towards the prize. Each 
young lady also receives five per cent, on what she sells 
at her bar. The places are awarded by lot, and, by a 
freak of fortune, the two most attractive demoiselles 
happened to come together. These were Numbers One 
and Fourteen. The former young lady — who desires 
to be known by her number only — true genius being 
ever modest — was certain to stand Number One in 
popular esteem ; and, if chignons are taken into ac- 
count, she ought literally to " head " the list by a very 
long way. The room was tastefully decorated by 
Messrs. JJefries, and an excellent band enlivened the 
proceedings. As evening drew on the meeting grew 
more hilarious, but there was not the slightest impro- 
priety of any kind, the faintest approach thereto lead- 
ing to immediate expulsion. 

Many persons may be disposed to ask, in respect of 
such exhibitions, Qui Bono ? But, at all events, there 
was nothing which the veriest Cato could denounce as 
demoralizing. The "young ladies " were all most mod- 



A BARMAID SHOW. 



175 



estly attired in " sober livery j" and certainly, though 
comparisons are odious, not so pressing in their atten- 
tions, as we have seen some other young ladies at 
Dramatic Fetes, or even some devouees at charitable 
bazaars. If we judge from the large numbers that vis- 
ited North Woolwich, " in spite of wind or weather," 
Mr. Holland was likely to reap an abundant harvest 
from this latest "idea"' excogitated from his fertile 
brain. As the babies have had their " show," and the 
stronger sex is not likely to be equal to the task of being 
exhibited just yet, there seems only one section of so- 
ciety open to the speculations of a skilful entrepreneur. 
Why does not some one, in a more serious line than 
Mr. Holland, try what Sydney Smith calls the " third 
sex," and open an exhibition of curates, with a genuine 
competition for prizes r There could be no possible 
doubt as to the success of such a display, and the in- 
struction to be derived from it would be equally beyond 
question. In the meantime we have advanced one 
step towards such a consummation. The adult human 
being has taken the place of the baby, and people evi- 
dently like it.- Where will the rage for exhibitions stop ? 
Who can feay to the advancing tide of shows, " Thus 
far shalt thou go. and no farther ? " Other classes of 
society will probably have their turn, and may think 
themselves fortunate if they show up as well as Mr. 
Holland's " young ladies." 



176 MYSTIC LONDON, 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

A PRIVATE EXECUTION. 

T WAS quietly fiddling away one evening in the Civil 
Service band at King's College, as was my custom 
while my leisure was larger than at present, when the 
gorgeous porter of the college entered with a huge bil- 
let, which he placed on my music-stand with a face of 
awe. It was addressed to me, and in the corner of it 
was written "Order for Execution." The official 
waited to see how I bore it, and seemed rather sur- 
prised that I went on with my fiddling, and smilingly 
said, " All right." I knew it was an order from the 
authorities of Horsemonger Lane Jail, admitting me to 
the private execution of Margaret Waters, the notorious 
baby-farmer. 

If anything is calculated to promote the views of 
those who advocate the abolition of capital punishment, 
it is the fact of a woman meeting her death at the 
hands of the common hangman. There is something 
abhorrent, especially to the mind of the stronger sex, in 
the idea of a female suffering the extreme penalty of 
the law. On the other hand, the crime for which Mar- 
garet Waters suffered — which is too much a cause 
dlebre to need recapitulation — is exactly the one that 
would exile her from ■ the sympathy of her own sex. 
Whilst therefore her case left the broad question much 
in the same position as before, we are not surprised to 
find that strenuous efforts had been made to obtain a 



A PRIVATE EXECUTION. 177 

comiTiulation of the sentence. Mr. Gilpin, Mr. Samuel 
Morley and Mr. Baines had been conspicuous for their 
efforts in the cause of mercy. All, however, had been 
to no purpose. Margaret Waters was privately exe- 
cuted within the walls of Horsemonger Lane Jail at 
nine o'clock. 

It was a thankless errand that called one from one's 
bed whilst the moon was still struggling with the feeble 
dawn of an October morning, and through streets al- 
ready white with the incipient frost of approaching 
winter, to see a fellow-creature — and that a wom'an — • 
thus hurried out of existence. On arriving at the 
gloomy prison-house I saw a fringe of roughs loung- 
ing about, anxious to catch a glimpse, if only of the 
black flag that should apprise them of the tragedy they 
were no longer privileged to witness. Even these, how- 
ever, did not muster in strong force until the hour of 
execution drew near. On knocking at the outer wicket 
the orders of admission were severely scrutinized, and 
none allowed to pass except those borne by the repre- 
sentatives of the press, or persons in some way official- 
ly connected with the impending " event." There was 
an air of grim "business" about all present, which 
showed plainly that none were there from choice, nor 
any who would not feel relief when the fearful spectacle 
was over. After assembling, first of all, in the porter's 
lodge, we were conducted by the governor, Mr. Keene, 
to the back of the prison, through courtyards and 
kitchen gardens ; and in the corner of one of the 
former we came upon the ghastly instrument of death 
itself. Here half-a dozen warders only were scattered 
about, and Mr. Calcraft was arranging his paraphernalia 
with the air of a connoisseur. I remember — so strange- 



178 MYSTIC LONDON. j 

ly does one's mind take in unimportant details at .such 
a crisis — being greatly struck with the fine leeks which 
were growing in that particular corner of the prison 
garden where the grim apparatus stood, and we — some 
five-and-twenty at most, and all in the way of " busi- 
ness " — stood, too, waiting for the event ! 

Then ensued a quarter of an hour's pause, in that 
cold morning air, when suddenly boomed out the prison 
bell, that told us the last few minutes of the convict's 
life had come. The pinioning took place within the 
building \ and on the stroke of nine, the gloomy proces- 
sion emerged, the prisoner walked between the chaplain 
and Calcraft, with a firm step, and even mounting the 
steep stair to the gallows without needing assistance. 
She was attired in a plaid dress with silk mantle, her 
head bare, and hair neatly arranged. 

As this was my first experience in private hanging, I 
do not mind confessing that I misdoubted my powers of 
endurance. I put a small brandy-flask in my pocket, 
and stood close by a corner around which I could retire 
if the sight nauseated me ; but such is the strange 
fascination attaching to exhibitions even of this horrible 
kind, that I pushed forward with the rest, and when the 
governor beckoned me on to a "good place," I found 
myself standing in the front rank with the rest of my 
confrlres^ and could not help picturing what that row of 
upturned, unsympathizing, pitiless faces must have 
looked like to the culprit as contrasted with the more 
sympathetic crowds that used to be present at a public 
execution. 

One of the daily papers in chronicling this event went 
so far as to point a moral on the brutalizing effect of 
such exhibitions from my momentary hesitation and 



A PRIVATE EXECUTION. 



179 



subsequent struggle forward into the front rank. The 
convict's perfect sang froid had a good deal to do with 
my own calmness, I expect. 

When the executioner had placed the rope round her 
neck, and the cap on her head ready to be drawn over 
the face, she uttered a long and fervent prayer, ex- 
pressed with great volubility and propriety of diction, 
every word of which could be distinctly heard by us as 
we circled the scaffold. She could not have rounded 
her periods more gracefully or articulated them more 
perfectly, if she had rehearsed her part beforehand ! 
Though most of the spectators were more or less inured 
to scenes of horror, several were visibly affected, one 
kneeling on the bare ground, and another leaning, over- 
come with emotion, against the prison wall. At last 
she said to the chaplain, " Mr. Jessopp, do you think I 
am saved ? " A whispered reply from the clergyman 
conveyed his answer to that momentous question. All 
left the scaffold except the convict. The bolt was with- 
drawn, and, almost without a struggle, Margaret Waters 
ceased to exist. Nothing could exceed the calmness 
and propriety. of her demeanor, and this, the chaplain 
informed us, had been the case throughout since her 
condemnation. She had been visited on one occasion 
by a Baptist minister, to whose persuasion she belonged ; 
but he had, at her own request, forborne to repeat his 
visit.^ The prisoner said he was evidently unused to 
case§ like hers, and his ministrations rather distracted 
than comiiorted her. The chaplain of the Jail had been 
unremitting in his attentions, and seemingly with happy 
effect. Though she constantly persisted in saying she 
was not a murderess in intent, she was yet brought to 
see her past conduct in its true light ; and on the pre- 



I So MYSTIC LONDOX. 

vious Saturday received the Holy Communion in her 
cell with one of her brothers. Two of them visited her, 
and expressed the strongest feelings of attachment. In 
fact, the unhappy woman- seemed to have been deeply 
attached to and beloved by all the members of her 
family. She had, since her condemnation, eaten scarce- 
ly anything, having been kept alive principally by stim- 
ulants. Although this, of course, induced great bodily 
weakness, she did not from the first exhibit any physical 
fear of death. On the night before her execution — that 
peaceful moonlight night — when so many thoughts must 
have turned to this unhappy woman, she slept little, and 
rose early. The chaplain had arranged to be with her 
at eight, but she sent for him an hour earlier, and he 
continued with her until the end. On Monday night 
she penned a long statement addressed to Mr. Jessopp. 
This was written with a firm hand on four sides of a 
foolscap sheet, expressed with great perspicuity, and 
signed with the convict's name. Whilst still repudiat- 
ing the idea of being a murderess in intent, she pleaded 
guilty to great deceit, and to having obtained money 
under false pretenses. If she had not given proper 
food, that, she contended, was an error of judgment. 
It was hard, she thought, that she should be held ac- 
countable for the child who died in the workhouse. She 
dwelt much upon the difficulties brought upon her by 
her dread of the money-lenders — that fungus growth of 
our so-called civilization, who has brought so iMny 
criminals to the gallows, besides ruining families every 
day in each year of grace ! That she had administered 
laudanum she denied. The evidence as to the dirty 
condition of the children she asserted to be false. She 
wished to avoid all bitterness : but those who had so 



A PRIVATE EXECUTION. i8i 

deposed had sworn falsely. " I feel sure their con- 
sciences will condemn them to-night," she wrote, "for 
having caused the death of a fellow-creature." In the 
face of the evidence, she felt the jury could not find any 
other verdict, or the judge pass any other sentence than 
had been done. The case had been got up, she argued, 
to expose a system which was wrong. Parents wished 
to get rid of their ill-gotten offspring. Their one thought 
was to hide their own shame. " They," she concluded, 
" are the real sinners. If it were not for their sin, we 
should not be sought after." 

There must surely be some whose consciente these 
words will prick. However this woman deserved the 
bitter penalty she has now paid, there is indeed a 
tremendous truth in her assertion that she, and such as 
she, are but the supply which answers their demand. 

And so we filed away as the autumnal sun shone 
down upon that gloomy spectacle, leaving her to the 
"crowner's 'quest," and the dishonored grave in the 
prison precincts. Up to the previous night strong hopes 
of a commutation of the sentence were entertained. 
Her brothers had memoralized the Home Secretary, 
and were only on the previous day informed that the 
law must take its course. Let us hope that this stern 
example will put a stop, not only to "baby-farming," 
which, as the dead woman truly said, is but a conse- 
quence of previous crime — but also to those "pleasant 
vices " which are its antecedents and encouragements. 



1 82 MYSTIC LONDON, 



CHAPTER XXVin. 

BREAKING UP FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 

T TNROMANTIC as it sounds to say it, I know of 

few things more disgusting than to revisit one's 
old school after some twenty or thirty years. Let that 
dubious decade still remain as to the number of years 
.that have elapsed since I left school. In fact it matters 
to nobody when I left it \ I revisited it lately. I went 
to see the boys break up, as I once broke up, and I felt 
disgusted — not with the school, or the breaking up, but 
with myself. I felt disgracefully old. In fact, I went 
home, and began a poem with these words : — 

My years, I f-eel, are getting on : 

Yet, ere the trembling balance kicks, I 

Will imitate the dying swan, 
And sing an ode threnodic — ^vixi. 

I never got any farther than that. By the way, I shall 
have to mention eventually that the school was King's 
College, in the Strand. I am not going to unbosom 
beyond this, or to add anything in the way of an auto- 
biography ; but the locale would have to come out anon, 
and there is no possible reason for concealment. 

Well, I went to see them break up for the holidays, 
and only got over my antediluvian feelings by seeing 
one of the masters still on the staff ^'ho was there when 
I was a boy. It was a comfort to think what a Methu- 
selah he must be ; and yet, if he will excuse the person- 
ality, he looked as rosy and smooth-faced as when he 



BREAKING UP FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 183 

used to stand me outside his door with my coat-sleeves 
turned inside out. It was a way he had. Well, the 
presence of that peculiar master made me feel an Adonis 
forthwith. 

I will not go into the prizes. There were lots of them, 
and they were very nice, and the boys looked very happy, 
and their mammas legitimately proud. What I want to 
speak of is the school speeches or recitations, as they 
are termed. King's College School speeches are, to my 
thinking, a model of what such things ought to be. 

Some schools — I name no names — ^go in for mere 
scholastic recitations which nobody understands, and 
the boys hate. Others burst out in full-blown theatri- 
cals. King's College acts on the motto, Medio tiitissi- 
viiis ibis. It keeps the old scholastic recitations, but 
gilds the pill by adding the accessory of costume. I 
can quote Latin as well as Dr. Pangloss, and certain 
lines were running in my mind all the time I was in 
King's College Hall. They were 

Pueris olim dant crustula bland 

Doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima. 

First we had a bit of German in the shape of an extract 
from Kotzebue's " Die Schlaue Wittwe^^'' or " Tempera- 
ments." I wish I had my programme, I would compli- 
ment by name the lad who played the charming young 
Frau. Suffice it to say the whole thing went off spark- 
Ting like a firework. It was short, and made you wish 
for more — a great virtue in speeches and sermons. The 
dancing-master was perfect. Then came a bit of Col- 
man's " Heir at Law." Dr. Pangloss — again I regret 
the absence of the programme — was a creation, and — 
notwithstanding the proximity of King's College to the 



1 8 4 ^'^^^ TIC L OND ON. 

Strand I'heatre — the youth wisely abstained from copy- 
ing even so excellent a model as Mr. Clarke. Of course, 
the bits of Latinity came out with a genuine scholastic 
ring. Then a bit of a Greek play, at which — mij-abile 
dictu I — everybody laughed, and with w4iich everybody 
was pleased. And why ? Because the adjuncts of 
costume and properties added to the correct enuncia- 
tion of the text, prevented even those, who know little 
Latin and less Greek, from being one moment in the 
dark as to what was going on. The passage was one 
from the " Birds " of Aristophanes ; and the fact of a 
treaty being concluded between the Olympians and ter- 
restrials, led to the introduction of some interpolatious 
as to the Washington Treaty, which, when, interpreted 
by the production of the American flag and English 
Union Jack, brought down thunders of applause. The 
final chorus was sung to " Yankee Doodle," and accom- 
panied by a fiddle. The acting and accessories were 
perfect ; and what poor Robson used to term the 
" horgan " of Triballos, was wonderful. That youth 
would be a nice young man for a small tea party. It is 
to be hoped that, like Bottom the weaver, he can modulate 
his voice, and roar as gently as any sucking-dove. 

Most wonderful, however, of all the marvels — that 
met me at my old school — was a scene from the 
" Critic," played by the most Lilliputian boys. Puff — 
played by Powell (I don't forget that name) — ^was simply 
marvellous. And yet Powell, if he will forgive me for 
saying so, was the merest whipper-snapper. Sir Chris- 
topher Hatton could scarcely have emerged from the 
nursery ; and yet the idea of utter stolidity never found 
a better exponent than that same homoeopathic boy. 

Last of all came the conventional scene from Moliere'a 



PSYCHOLOGICAL LADIES, 1S5 

** L'Avarer Mattre Jacques was good ; Harpagon more 
than good. I came away well satisfied, only regretting 
I had not brought my eldest boy to see it. My eldest 
boy? Egad, and I was just such as he is now, when I 
used to creep like a snail unwillingly to those scholas- 
tic shades. The spirit of Pangloss came upon me again 
as I thought of all I had seen that da}^, — there was 
nothing like it in my day. King's College keeps pace 
with the times. '''' Tevipora mutantur T'' I mentally 
exclaimed j and added, not without a pleasant skepti- 
cism, as I gazed once more on the pippin-faced master, 
" I wonder whether — nos miitamtir in illis ? " 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL LADIES. 

'T^HERE is no doubt that the "Woman's Rights" 
question is going ahead with gigantic strides, not 
only in social and political, but also in intellectual 
matters. Boys and girls — or rather we ought to say 
young ladies and young gentlemen — are grouped to- 
gether on the class list of the Oxford Local Examina- 
tion, irrespective of sex. A glance at the daily papers 
will show us that women are being lectured to on all 
subjects down from physical sciences, through English 
literature and art, to the construction of the clavecin. 
We had fancied, however, that what are technically 
termed the " Humanities," or, in University diction, 
"Science" — meaning thereby ethics and logic — were 



i86 MYSTIC LONDON. 

still our own. Now, we are undeceived. We are re- 
minded that woman can say, without a solecism, ^^ Homo 
sum,'' and may therefore claim to embrace even the 
humanities among her subjects of study. Henceforth 
the realm of woman is not merely what may be called 
" pianofortecultural," as was on.ce the case. It has soar- 
ed even above art, literature, and science itself into what 
might at first sight appear the uncongenial spheres of 
dialectics and metaphysics. 

Professor G. Croom Robertson recently commenced 
a course of thirty lectures to ladies on Psychology and 
Logic, at the Hall, 15, Lower Seymour Street, Portman 
Square. Urged, it may be, rather by a desire to see 
whether ladies would be attracted by such a subject, 
and, if so, what psychological ladies were like, than by 
any direct interest in the matters themselves, I applied 
to the Hon. Secretary, inquiring whether the inferior sex 
were admissible ; and was answered by a ticket admit- 
ting one's single male self and a party of ladies a dis- 
cretion. The very entrance to the hall — nay, the popu- 
lous street itself — removed my doubts as to whether 
ladies would be attracted by the subjects ; and on en- 
tering I discovered that the audience consisted of sev- 
eral hundred ladies, and two unfortunate — or shall it 
not rather be said privileged i* — members of the male 
sex. The ladies were of all ages, evidently matrons as 
well as spinsters, with really nothing at all approaching 
a " blue stocking" element; but all evidently bent on 
business. All were taking vigorous notes, and seemed 
to follow the Professor's somewhat difficult Scotch dic- 
tion at least as well as our two selves, who appeared to 
represent not only the male sex in general, but the Lon- 
don press in particular. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL LADIES. 187 

Professor Robertson commenced by a brief and well- 
timed reference to the accomplished Hypatia, familiar 
to ladies from Kingsley's novel — in the days when ladies 
used to read novels — and also the Royal ladies whom 
Descartes and Leibnitz found apter disciples than the 
savants. It was, however, he remarked, an imperti- 
nence to suppose that any apology was needed for in- 
troducing such subjects btfore ladies. He plunged 
therefore at once in medias res^ and made his first lec- 
ture not a mere isolated or introductory one, but the 
actual commencement of his series. Unreasoned facts, 
he said, formed but a mere fraction of our knowledge — 
even the simplest process resolving themselves into a 
chain of inference. Truth is the result of logical rea- 
soning; and not only truth, but Xxw'Cufor all. The sci- 
ences deal with special aspects of truth. These sciences 
may be arranged in the order — i. Mathematics ; 2, 
Physics ; 3. Chemistry ; 4. Biology — each gradually 
narrowing its sphere ; the one enclosed, so to say, in the 
other, and each presupposing those above it. Logic 
was presupposed by all. Each might be expressed by a 
word endingjn " logy," therefore logic might be termed the 
" science of sciences." The sciences were special ap- 
plications of logic. Scientific men speak lightly of logic, 
and say truth can be discovered without it. This is 
true, but trivial. We may as well object to physiology 
because we can digest without a knowledge of it ; or to 
arithmetic, because it is possible to reckon without it. 
Scientific progress has been great ; but its course might 
have been strewn with fewer wrecks had its professors 
been more generally logicians. But then logic presup- 
poses something else. We have to investigate the ori- 
gin and growth of knowledge — the laws under which 



l88 MYSTIC LONDON. 

knowledge comes to be. Under one aspect this science 
— psychology — should be placed highest up in the scale \ 
but under another it would rank later in point of devel- 
opment than even biology -itself, because it is not every 
being that thinks. This twofold aspect is accounted 
for by the peculiarity of its subject-matter — viz., mind. 

The sciences are comparatively modern. Mathemat- 
ics but some 3000 or 4000 years old ; physics, three 
centuries ; chemistry, a thing of the last, biology only 
of the present century. But men philosophized before 
the sciences. The ancient Greeks had but one science 
— mathematics. Now men know a little of many sci- 
ences ; but what we want is men to connect — to knit to- 
gether — the sciences ; to have their knowledge all of a 
piece. The knowledge of the ancient Greek directed 
his actions, and entered far more into his daily life than 
ours does. This, he observed, was philosophy. This is 
what we want now ; and this is what is to be got from 
psycholog}^ There is not a single thing between heaven 
and earth that does not admit of a mental expression ; 
or, in other words, possess a subjective aspect, and 
therefore come under psychology. 

This, in briefest outline, is a sketch of the " strong 
meat " offered to the psychological ladies. A single 
branch of psychology — that, namely, of the intellect, 
excluding that of feeling and action — ^is to occupy ten 
lectures, the above being number one. The other twenty 
will be devoted to logic. 

The next lecture was devoted to an examination of 
the brain and nervous system, and their office in men- 
tal processes. Alas, however, how different was now 
the audience ! Only some thirty ladies — scarcely more 
than one-tenth of those who were present at the open- 



SECULARi:SM OA' BUA-VAA'. 1 89 

ing lecture — have permanently entered for the course. 
It is no disrespect to the ladies to hazard the conjecture 
whether the subject be not a little out of range for the 
present. We are moving ahead rapidly, and many fool- 
ish ideas as to the intellectual differences of the sexes 
are becoming obsolete. We have literary and artistic 
ladies by thousands. Scientific ladies, in the ordinary 
acceptation of the term, are coming well to the front. 
Possibly we may have to "wait a little longer" before 
we get, on anything like a large scale, psychological or 
even logical ladies. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

SECULARISM ON BUNYAN. 

TT is very marvellous to observe the number of 
strange and unexpected combinations that are con- 
tinually occurring in that moral kaleidoscope we call 
societ}^ I do not suppose that I am exceptional in 
coming across these ; nor do I use any particular in- 
dustry in seeking them out. They come to me ; all I 
do is to keep my eyes open, and note the impressions 
they make on me. I was humbly pursuing my way one 
Tuesday evening towards the abode of a phrenologist 
with the honest intention of discovering my cranio- 
logical condition, when, in passing down Castle Street, 
Oxford Market, I was made aware that Mr. G. J. 
Holyoake was there and then to deliver himself on the 
'' Literary Genius of Bunyan." This was one of the 



, ^o MYSTIC L ONDON, 

incongruous combinations I spoke of ; and forthwith I 
passed into the Co-operative Hall, resolving to ' defer 
my visit to the phrenologist. There are some facts of 
which it is better to remain contentedly ignorant > and 
I have no doubt my own mental condition belongs to 
that category. 

I found the Co-operative Hall a handsome and com- 
modious building ; and a very fair audience had gather- 
ed to listen to Mr. Holyoake, who is an elderly thin- 
voiced man, and his delivery was much impeded on the 
occasion in question by the circumstance of his having a 
bad cold and cough. After a brief extempore allusion 
to the fact of the Duke of Bedford having erected a 
statue to Eunyan, which he regarded as a sort of com- 
pensation for his Grace ceasing to subscribe to the races, 
Mr. Holyoake proceeded to read his treatise, which he 
had written on several slips of paper — apparently backs 
of circulars — and laid one by one on a chair as he finish- 
ed them. 

The world, he said, is a big place ; but people are 
always forgetting what a variety of humanity it contains. 
Two hundred years ago, the authorities of Bedford made 
it very unpleasant for one John Bunyan, because they 
thought they knew everything, and could not imagine 
that a common street workman might know more. The 
trade of a tinker seems an unpromising preparation for 
a literary career, A tinker in Bedford to-day would not 
find himself much flattered by the attentions paid him, 
esj^ecially if he happened to be an old jail-bird as well. 
So much the more creditable to Bunyan the ascendancy 
he gained. If he mended pots as well as he made 
sentences he was the best tinker that ever travelled. 

Bunyan had no worldly notions. His doctrine was 



SECULARISM ON B UN VAN. 1 9 1 

aat men were not saved by any good they might do- 
doctrine that would ruin the morals of any commercial 
stablishment in a month! He declared himself the 
[ chief of sinners ; " but judged by his townsmen he was 
ij. stout-hearted, stout-minded, scrupulous man. 
ij He was not a pleasant man to know. He had an un- 
ijelenting sincerity which often turned into severity. Yet 
lehad much tenderness. He had a soul like a Red 
ndian's— all tomahawk and truth, until the literar)' 
)assion came and added humor to it. He demands in 
lis vigorous doggerel : — 

May I not write in such a style as this. 

In such a method, too, and yet not miss 

My end, thy good ? Why may it not be done ? 

Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none. 

, Like all men of original genius, this stout-minded pot- 
jmender had unbounded confidence in himself. He was 
lunder no delusion as to his own powers. No man knew 
Ibetter what he was about. He could take the measure 
!0f all the justices about him, and he knew it. Every 
shallow-headed gentleman in Bedfordshire towns and 
jvillages was mide to wince under his picturesque and 
Isatiric tongue. To clergymen, bishops, lawyers, and 
'judges he gave names which all his neighbors knew. 
Mr.'' Pitiless, Mr Hardheart, Mr. Forget-good, Mr. No- 
truth, Mr. Haughty— thus he named the disagreeable 
dignitaries of the town of Mansoul. 
- At first he was regarded by his " pastors and masters " 
I as a mere wilful, noisy, praying sectary. Very soon they 
I discovered that he was a fighting preacher. As tinker 
I or Christian he always had his sleeves turned up. When 
he had to try his own cause he put in the jury-box Mr 



TQ2 MYSTIC L07VD0A, 

True-Heart, Mr. Upright, Mr. Hate-Bad, Mr. See-Trutii, 
and other amiable persons. His witnesses were Mr. 
Know-Ail, Mr. Tell-True, Mr. Hate-Lies, Mr. Vouch- 
Truth, Mr. Did-See. His Town Clerk was Mr. Do- 
Right, the Recorder was Mr. Conscience, the jailef* 
was Mr. True-Man, Lord Understanding was on the 
bench, and the Judge bears the dainty name of the 
" Golden-headed Prince." 

Bunyan's adversaries are always a bad set. They 
live in Villain's Lane, in Blackmouth Street, or Blas- 
phemer's Row, or Drunkard's Alley, or Rascal's Corner. 
They are the sons of one Beastly, whose mother bore 
them in Flesh Square : they live at the house of one 
Shameless, at the sign of the Reprobate, next door to 
the Descent into the Pit, whose retainers are Mr. Flatter, 
Mr. Impiety, Mr. False-peace, Mr. Covetousness, who 
are housed by one Mr. Simple, in Folly's Yard. 

Bunyan had a perfect wealth of sectarian scurrility at 
his command. His epithets are at times unquotable 
and ferocious. When, however, his friends are at the 
bar, the witnesses against them cornprise the choicest 
scoundrels of all time — Mr. Envy, Mr. Pick-thank, 
and others, whose friends are Lord Carnal-Delight, 
Lord Luxurious, Lord Lechery, Sir Having Greedy, and 
similar villanous people of quality. The Judge's name 
is now Lord Hate-Good. The jury consist of Mr. No- 
Good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-Lust, Mr. Live- Loose, Mr. 
Heady, Mr. Hate-Light, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr; 
Cruelty, and Mr, Implacable, with Mr. Blindman for : 
Foreman. 

Never was such an infamous gang impanelled. Ran- 
cor and rage and vindictiveness, and every passion 
awakened in the breasts of the strong by local insolence 



SECULARISM ON BUN VAN. 



93 



and legal injustice, is supplied by Bunyan with epithets 
of immense retaliative force. He is the greatest name- 
maker among authors. He was a spiritual Comanche. 
He prayed like a savage. He said himself, when de- 
scribing the art of the religious rhetorician — an art of 
which he was the greatest master of his time : — 

You see the ways the fisherman doth take 
To catch the fish ; what engines doth he make ! 
Behold ! how he engageth all his wits, 
Also his snares, lines, angles, hooks, and nets ; 
Yet fish there be that neither hook nor line, 
Nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine; 
They must be grop'd for, and be tickled too, 
Or they will not be catch'd, whate'er you do. 

Bunyan never tickled the sinner. It was not his way. 
He carried a prong. He pricked the erring. He pub 
lished a pamphlet to suggest what ought to be done to 
holy pedestrians, whose difficulties lay rearward. He 
put detonating balls under their feet which exploded as 
they stepped and alarmed them along. He lined the 
celestial road with horrors. If they turned their heads 
they saw a fiend worse than Lot's wife who was merely 
changed into a pillar of sweet all-preserving salt. Bun- 
yan's unfortunate converts who looked back fell into a 
pit filled with fire, where they howled and burnt for- 
evermore. 

Ah ! with what pleasure must the great Bedfordshire 
artist have contemplated his masterly pages as day by 
day he added to them the portrait of some new scoun- 
drel, or painted wdth dexterous and loving hand the 
wholesome outline of some honest man, or devised 
some new phrase which like a new note or new color 
would delight singer or painter for generations yet to 

13 



94 



MYSTIC LONDON: 



come. He must have strode proudly along his cell as 
he put his praise and his scorn into imperishable 
smiles. 

But Bunyan had never been great had he been mere- 
ly disagreeable. He had infinite wit in him. It was 
his carnal genius that saved him. He wrote sixty books, 
and two of them — the " SieTge of the Town of Mansoul " 
and the " Pilgrim's Progress " — exceed all ever WTitten 
for creative swiftness of imagination, racy English 
speech, sentences of literary art, cunningness in dia- 
logue, satire, ridicule, and surpassing knowledge of the 
picturesque ways of the obscure minds of common men. 
In his pages men rise out of the ground — they always 
come up on an open space so that they can be seen. 
They talk naturally, so that you know them at once ; 
and they act without delay, so that you never forget 
them. They surprise you, delight you, they interest 
you, they instruct you, and disappear. They never 
linger, they never weary you. Incidents new and 
strange arise at every step in his story. The scene 
changes like the men and their adventures. Now it is 
field or morass, plain or bypath, bog or volcano, castle 
or cottage, sandy scorching desert or cold river ; the 
smoke of the bottomless pit or bright, verdant, delecta- 
ble mountains and enchanted lands where there are no 
bishops, no jails, and no tinkers j where aboundeth 
grapes, calico, brides, eternal conversation, and trump- ' 
ets. The great magician's genius forsakes him when 
he comes to the unknown regions, and he knoweth no 
more than the rest of us. But while his foot is on the 
earth he steps like a king among writers. His Christian 
is no fool. He is cunning of fence, suspicious, sa- 
gacious, witty, satirical, abounding in invective, and 



SECULARISM ON BUNYAN. 195 

aroad, bold, delicious insolence. Bye-Ends is a subtle, 
evasive knave drawn with infinite skill. 
i Had Bunyan merely preached the Gospel he had no 
imore been remembered than thousands of his day who 
are gratefully forgotten— had he prayed to this time he 
had won no statue ; but his literary genius lives when 
ithe preacher is very dead. 

. He saw with such vividness that the very passions 
and wayward moods of men stood apart and distinct in 
his sight, and he gave names to them and endowed 
them with their natural speech. He created new men 
out of characteristics of mind, and sent them into the 
world in shapes so defined and palpable that men know 
them for evermore. It was the way of his age for 
writers to give names to their adversaries. Bunyan im 
itated this in his life of Mr. Badman. Others did this, 
but Bunyan did it better than any man. His invention 
was marvellous, and he had besides the faculty of the 

dramatist. 

If any man wrote the adventures of a Co-operator, he 
would have to tell of his meeting with Mr. Obstinate, 
. who will not listen to him, and wants to pull him back. 
We all get the company of Mr. Pliable, who is per- 
suaded without being convinced, who at the first splash 
into difftculty crawls out and turns back with a coward- 
ly adroitness. We have all encountered the stupidity of 
Mr. Ignorance, which nothing can enlighten. We know 
Mr. Turnaway, who comes from the town of Apostacy, 
whose face we cannot perfectly see. Others merely 
give names, he drew characters, he made the qualities 
of his men speak ; you knew them by their minds bet- 
ter than by their dress. That is why succeeding ages 
have read the "Pilgrim's Progress," because the same 



196 MYSTIC LONDON. 

people who met that extraordinary traveller are always 
turning up in the way of every man who has a separate 
and a high purpose, and is bent upon carrying it out. 
Manner^ change, but humanity has still its old ways. 
It is because Bunyan painted these that his writing 
lasts like a picture by one of the old masters who 
painted for all time. 

Such is an outline of the paper, which was interest- 
ing from its associations, and only spoilt by the cough. 
We had had Bunyan in pretty well every shape possible 
during the last few weeks. Certainly one of the most 
original is this which presents the man of unbounded 
faith in the light of utter skepticism. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

AL FRESCO INFIDELITY. 

TN a series of papers like the present it is necessary, 
every now and then, to pause and apologize, either 
for the nature of the work in general, or for certain par- 
ticulars in its execution calculated to shock good people 
whose feelings one would wish to respect. Having so 
long been engaged in the study of infidelity in London, 
I may, perhaps, be permitted to speak with something 
like authority in the matter; and I have no hesitation 
in saying that I believe the policy of shirking the sub- 
ject is the most fatal and foolish one that could be 
adopted. Not only does such a course inspire people, 
especially young people, with the idea that there is 



AL FRESCO INFIDELITY. ir^y 

something very fascinating in infidelity — something 
, which, if allowed to meet their fc,aze, would be sure to 
attract and convince them — than which nothing is 
farther from the truth — not only so, however, but many 
of the statements and most of the arguments which 
sound plausibly enough on the gjib tongue of a popular 
speaker read very differently indeed when put down in 
icold-blooded letter-press, and published in the pages of 
la book. I protest strongly against making a mystery of 
London infidelity. It has spread and is spreading, I 
know, and it is well the public should know; but I 
believe there would be no such antidote to it as for 
people to be fully made aware how and where it is 
spreading. That is the role I have all along proposed 
to myself ; not to declaim against any man or any sys- 
tem, not to depreciate or disguise the truth, but simply 
to describe. I cannot imagine a more legitimate method 
of doing my work. 

5 I suppose no one will regard it in any way as an 
iRdulgence or a luxury on the part of a clergyman, who, 
be it remembered, is, during a portion of the Sunday, 
engaged in ministering to Christian people, that he 
should devote another portion of that day to hearing 
Christ vilified, and having his own creed torn to pieces. 
I myself feel that my own belief is not shaken, but in a 
I tenfold degree confirmed by all I have heard and seen 
and written of infidelity; and therefore I cannot con- 
cede the principle that to convey my experiences to 
: others is in any way dangerous. Take away the halo of 
mystery that surrounds this subject, and it would possess 
very slender attractions indeed. 

It was, for instance, on what has always appeared to 
me among the mast affecting epochs of our Christian 



igS MYSTIC LONDON. ^1 

year, the Fifth Sunday after Easter — Christ's last Sun- 
day upon earth — that, by one of those violent antitheses, 
I went to Gibraltar Walk, Bethnal Green Road, to hear 
Mr. Ramsey there demolish the very system which, for 
many years, it has been my mission to preach. I did 
not find, and I hope my congregation did not find, that 
I faltered in my message that evening. I even venture 
to think that Mr. Ramsey's statements, which I shall 
repeat as faithfully as possible, will scarcely seem as 
convincing here as they did when he poured them fortb 
so fluently to the costermongers and navvies of the ■ 
Bethnal Green Road ; and if this be true of Mr. Ram- 
sey it is certainly so of the smaller men ; for he is a / 
master in his craft, and certainly a creditable antagonist ^: 
for a Christian to meet with the mild defensive weapons ; 
we have elected to use. 

When the weather proves fine, as it ought to have done 
in May, 1874, infidelity adjourns from its generally j 
slummy halls to the street corners, and to fields which 
are often the reverse of green ; thus adopting, let me 
remark in passing, one of the oldest instrumentalities of 
Christianity itself, one, too, in which we shall do well to 
follow its example. Fas est ab hoste doceri — I cannot 
repeat too often. Scorning the attractions of the rail- 
way arches in the St. Pancras Road, where I hope soon 
to be a listener, I sped via the Metropolitan Railway 
and tram to Shoreditch Church, not far from which, 
past the Columbia Market and palatial Model Lodging 
Houses, is the unpicturesque corner called Gibraltar 
Walk, debouching from the main road, with a triangulai 
scrap of very scrubby ground, flanked by a low wall ' 
which young Bethnal Green is rapidly erasing from tht 
face of the earth. When I got here, I found an uncleri 



AL FRESCO INFIDELITY. 



199 



cal-looking gentleman in a blue great-coat and sandy 
moustache erecting his rostrum in the shape of a small 
deal stool, from whence I could see he was preparing 
to pour forth the floods of his rhetoric by diligent study 
of some exceedingly greasy notes which he held in his 
hand, and perused at what I feel sure must have been 
the windiest street corner procurable outside the cave 
of T^olus. I fell back into the small but very far from 
select crowd which had already begun to gather, and an 
old man, who was unmistakably a cobbler, having ascer- 
tained that I had come to hear the lecture, told me he 
had " listened to a good many of 'em, but did not feel 
much for'arder." Undismayed by this intelligence I 
still elected to tarry, despite the cruel nor'-easter that 
was whistling round the corner of the Bethnal Green 
Road. In a few minutes I perceived a slight excite- 
ment in the small gathering due to the fact that the 
Christians had put in an appearance, so that there 
would be some opposition. Mr. Harrington, a young 
man whom I had heard once speak fluently enough on 
the theistic side at an infidel meeting, was unpacking 
his rostrum, which was a patent folding one, made of 
deal, like that of his adversary, but neatly folded along 
with a large Bible, inside a green baize case. Both 
gentlemen commenced proceedings at the same time ; 
and as they had pitched their stools very close to one 
another, the result was very much like that of tw^o grind- 
ing organs in the same street. Of the two, Mr. Har- 
rington's voice was louder than Mr. Ramsey's. The 
latter gentleman had a sore throat, and had to be kept 
lubricated by means of a jug of water, which a brother 
heretic held ready at his elbow. Mr. Harrington M^as 
in prime condition, but his congregation was smaller 



200 MYSTIC LONDON. 

than ours ; for I kept at first — I was going to say relig- 
iously, I suppose I ought to say /r-religiously — to the 
infidels. 

Mr. Ramsey, who had a rooted aversion to the letter 
" h," except where a smooth breathing is usual, began 
by saying that Christianity differed from other religions 
in the fact of its having an eternal 'Ell. The Mahomet- 
ans had their beautiful ladies ; the North American 
Indian looked for his 'Appy 'Unting Grounds ; but 'Ell 
was a specialty of the Christian system. On the other 
side was the fact that you continually had salvation 
inundated upon you. Tracts were put into your hand, 
asking-—" What must I do to be saved ? " We had to 
pay for this salvation about 11,000,000/. a year to the 
Church of England, and something like an equal amount 
to the Dissenters. In fact every tub thumper went 
about preaching and ruining servant girls, and for this 
we paid over twenty millions a year — more than the 
interest on the whole National Debt. After this elegant 
exordium, Mr. Ramsey said he proposed to divide his 
remarks under four heads, i. Is Salvation necessary? 
2. What are we to be saved from? 3. What for? 
4. How? 

I. According to the Christian theory, God, after an 
eternity of " doin' nothin','' created the world. He 
made Adam sin by making sin for him. to commit ; and 
then damned him for doing what He knew he would do. 
He predestined you — the audience — to be damned be- 
cause of Adam's sin ; but after a time God " got sick 
and tired of damning people," and sent His Son to re- 
deem mankind. 

This flower of rhetoric tickled Bethnal Green im- 
mensely; but Mr. Harrington was equal to the occasion, 



AL FRESCO INFIDELITY. 20i 

'nd thundered out his orthodoxy so successfully that 
,[i. Ramsay took a longer drink than usual, and com- 
)lained that he was not having "a free platform "—it 
vas so he dignified the rickety stool on which he was 
Dcrched. He then meandered into a long dissection of 
:jenesis i., appearing to feel particularly aggrieved by 
:he fact of the moon being said to " rule the night," 
bough I could not see how this was relevant to the 
hristian scheme of salvation ; and a superb policeman, 
Uo had listened for a moment to Mr. Ramsey's astro- 
nomical lucubrations, evidently shared my feelings and 
passed on superciliously. I devoutly wished my duty 
had permitted me to do the same. 

The speaker then went into a long dissertation on 
the primal sin ; the gist of which was that though 
ilie woman had never been warned not to eat of the 
Forbidden Fruit, she had to bear the brunt of the 
punishment. Then— though one is almost ashamed 
to chronicle such a triviality — he waxed very wroth 
because the serpent was spoken of as being cursed 
■above all "cattle." Who ever heard of snakes being 
called cattle 1 . He was condemned to go on his belly. 
How did he go before ? Did he go on his back or 
« 'op " along on the tip of his tail ? These pleasan- 
.|ries drew all Mr. Harrington's audience away except 
a few little dirty boys on the wall. Mr. Ramsey 
clearly knew his audience, and '' acted to the gallery." 
2. But what were -we to be saved from ? Eternal 
'Ell-fire. This 'Ell-fire was favorite sauce for ser- 
mons, and served to keep people awake. Where was 
'Ell? It was said to be a bottomless pit; if so, he 
should be all right, because he could get out at the 
other end ! Then, again, 'Ell was said to be a very 



202 MYSTIC LONDON. 

'ot place. When the missionaries told the Green 
landers that, everybody wanted to go to 'Ell ; so they 
had to change their tune and say it was very cold, 
Mr. Ramsay omitted to mention his authority for this 
statement. 

Into his pleasantries on the monotony of life in 
'Eaven, I do not feel inclined to follow this gentle-, 
man. The Atonement, he went on to remark, if neces- 
sary at all, came 4000 years too late. It should have! 
been — so we were to believe on his ipse dixit — con- 
temporaneous with the Fall. This atonement we were 
to avail ourselves of by means of faith. Idiots could 
not have faith, but were allowed to be saved. Conse- 
quently, argued Mr. Ramsay, in conclusion, the best I' 
thing for all of us would have been to have been born 
idiots, and, consistently enough, Christianity tried tc 
turn us all into idiots. 

Such were some of the statements. I refrain from 
quoting the most offensive, which were deliberate!) 
put forward at this al fresco infidels' meeting ; and 
with what result.? Though a vast population kepi 
moving to and fro along that great highway, there 
were never, I am sure, more than a hundred peopleij 
gathered at the shrine of Mr. Ramsay. They laugliedr 
at his profanities, yes j but directly he dropped these, 
and grew argumentative, they talked, and had to be|; 
vigorously reduced, to order. Gallio-like, they carecj 
for none of these things, and I am quite sure a gooc| 
staff of working clergymen like Mr. Body or Mr.li 
Steele of St. Thomas', who could talk to the people.! 
would annihilate Mr. Ramsay's prestige. As for Mr;|| 
Harrington, he meant well, and had splendid lung 
power, but his theology was too sectarian to suit :j 



AN '^INDESCRIBABLE PHENOMENON:' 203 

mixed body of listeners, embracing all shades of 
thought and no-thought. 

Supposing Mr. Ramsey to have put forth all his 
power that morning — and I have no reason to doubt 
that he did so — I deliberately say that I should not 
hesitate to take my own boy down to hear him, because 
I feel that even his immature mind would be able to 
realize how little there was to be said against Chris- 
tianity, if that were all 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

AN "indescribable PHENOMENON." 

X 1[ ^HEN the bulk of the London Press elects to gush 
over anything or anybody, there are, at all events, 
prima fade grounds for believing that there is something 
to justify such a consensus. When, moreover, the ob- 
ject of such gush is a young lady claiming to be a spirit- 
medium, the unanimity is so unusual as certainly to 
make the matter worth the most careful inquiry, for 
hitherto the London Press has either denounced spiritu- 
alism altogether, or gushed singly over individual 
mediums, presumably according to the several proclivi- 
ties of the correspondents. Of Miss Annie Eva Fay, 
however — is not the very name fairy-like and fascinating.? 
— I read in one usually sober-minded journal that " there 
is something not of this earth about the young lady's 
powers." Another averred that she was "a spirit me- 
dium of remarkable and extraordinary power." Others, 



204 MYSTIC LOXDOmV. 

more cautious, described the "mystery" as "bewilder- 
ing," the "entertainment" as "extraordinary and in- 
comprehensible," while yet another seemed to me to 
afford an index to the cause of this gush by saying that 
" Miss Fay is a pretty young lady of about twenty, with 
a delicate spirituelle face, and a profusion of light hair, 
frizzled on the forehead. 

I made a point of attending Miss Annie Eva Fay's 
opening performance at the Hanover Square Rooms, 
and found all true enough as to the pretty face and the 
frizzled hair. Of the " indescribable " nature of the 
"phenomenon " (for by that title is Miss Fay announced 
a la Vincent Crummies) there may be two opinions, 
according as we regard the young lady as a kind of 
Delphic Priestess and Cumaean Sibyl rolled into one, 
or simply a clever conjuror — conjuress, if there be such 
a word. 

Let me, then, with that .delightful inconsistency so 
often brought to bear on the so-called or self-styled 
" supernatural," first describe the " indescribable," and 
then, in the language of the unspiritual Dr. Lynn, tell 
how it is all done ; for, of course, I found it all out, like a 
great many others of the enlightened and select audience 
which gathered at Miss Annie Eva Fay's first drawing- 
room reception in the Queen's Concert Rooms. 

Arriving at the door half an hour too early, as I had 
misread the time of commencement, I found at the 
portal Mr. Burns, of the Progressive Library, and a gen- 
tleman with a diamond brooch in his shirt-front, whom I 
guessed at once, from that adornment, to be the pro- 
prietor of the indescribable phenomenon, and I was, 
in fact, immediately introduced to him as Colonel Fay. 

Passing in due course within the cavernous room 



A,V '' IXDESCRIBABLE PFJENGMEiYON." 205 

which might have suited well a Cumaean Sibyl on a 
small scale, I found the platform occupied by a tiny 
cabinet, unlike that of the Davenports in that it was 
open in front, with a green curtain, which I could see was 
destined to be let down during the performance of the 
phenomenal manifestations. There was a camp-stool 
inside the cabinet ; a number of cane-bottomed chairs on 
the platform, and also the various properties of a spirit 
stance, familiar to me from long experience, guitar, 
fiddle, handbells, tambourine, &c. One adjunct alone 
was new ; and that was a green stable bucket, destined, I 
could not doubt, to figure in what my Rimmel-scented pro- 
gramme promised as the climax of Part I. — the " Great 
Pail Sensation." Presently Colonel Fay, in a brief 
speech, nasal but fluent, introduced the subject, and 
asked two gentlemen to act as a Committee of In- 
spection. Two stepped forward immediately — indeed 
too immediately, as the result proved ; one a " citizen of 
this city," as Colonel Fay had requested ; but the other 
a Hindoo young gentleman, who, I believe, lost the con- 
fidence of the audience at once from his foreign face and 
Oriental garb. However, they were first to the front, 
and so were elected, and proceeded at once to " ex- 
amine" the cabinet in that obviously helpless and 
imperfect way common to novices who work with 
the gaze of an audience upon them. Then, from a 
side door, stage left, enter the Indescribable Pheno- 
menon. A pretty young lady, yes, and with light 
frizzled hair to any extent. There was perhaps " a spirit 
look within her eyes ; " but then I have often found this 
to be the case with young ladies of t\venty. Her dress 
of light silk was beyond reproach. I had seen 
Florence Cook and Miss Showers lately ; and, — well, I 



2o6 MYSTIC LONDON. 

thought those two, with the assistance of Miss Annie 
Eva Fay, would have made a very pretty model for a 
statuette of the Three Graces. 

Miss Fay, after being described by the Colonel vaguely 
enough as " of the United States," was bound on both 
wrists with strips of calico ; the knots were sewn by the 
European gentleman, as distinguished from the Asiatic 
youth. He was not quite aufait at the needle, but got 
through it in time. Miss Fay was then placed on the 
camp-stool, her wrists fastened behind her, and her neck 
also secured to a ring screwed into the back of the 
cabinet. A rope was tied round her ankles, and passed 
right to the front of the stage, where the Hindoo youth 
was located and bidden hold it taut, which he did con- 
scientiously, his attitude being what Colman describes 
" like some fat gentleman who bobbed for eels." 

First of all, another strip of calico was placed loosely 
round Miss Fay's neck ; the curtain descended. Hey, 
presto ! it was up again, sooner than it takes to write, 
and this strip was knotted doubly and trebly round her 
neck. A tambourine hoop was put in her lap, and this, 
in like manner, was found encircling her neck, as far as 
the effervescent hair would allow it. 

The audience at this point grew a little fidgety ; and 
though they did not say anything against the Oriental 
young gentleman, the 'cute American colonel understood 
it, adding two others from the audience to the committee 
on the stage, and leaving the young gentleman to 
" bob " down below as if to keep him out of mischief, t 

The other " manifestations " were really only differ- 
ent in detail from the first. The guitar was placed on 
the lap, the curtain fell and it played ; so did the fiddle ;^ 
— out of tune, as usual — and also a little glass harmoni- 



AN ''INDESCRIBABLE PHENOMENON." 207 

con with actually a soup9on of melody. A mouth- 
organ tootle-tooed, and what Colonel Fay described ay 
a " shingle nail " was driven with a hammer into a 
piece of wood. A third of a tumbler of water laid on 
the lap of the Indescribable Phenomenon was drunk, 
and the great Pail Sensation consisted in the bucket 
being put on her lap and then discovered slung by the 
handle around her neck. Tlie last " manifestation " is 
the one to which I would draw attention ; for it was by 
this I discovered how it was all done. A knife was put on 
Miss Fay's lap ; the curtain lowered, the knife pitched 
on to the platform, and behold the Indescribable Pheno- 
menon stepped from the cabinet with the ligature that 
had bound her wrists and neck severed. 

Now, all through this portion of the entertainment the 
audience, instead of sitting quiet, amused themselves 
with proposing idiotic tests, or suggesting audibly how 
it was all done. One man behind me pertinaciously 
clung to the theoiy of a concealed boy, and trotted him 
to the front after every phase of the exhibition. He must 
have been inhnitesimally small ; but that did not mat- 
ter. It was " that boy again " after every trick. One 
manifestation consisted in putting a piece of paper and 
pair of scissors on Miss Fay's lap, and having several 
*• tender little infants '' cut out, as the Colonel phrased it. 

Hereupon sprang up a 'cute individual in the room, 
and produced a sheet of paper he had marked. Would 
Miss Fay cut out a tender little infant from that.^ Miss 
Fay consented, and of course did it, the 'cute individ- 
ual retiring into private life for the rest of the evening. ^ 
Another wanted Miss Fay's mouth to be bound with a * 
handkerchief, and there was no objection raised, until 
the common-sense and humanity of the audience pro- 



2o8 MYSTIC LONDON. 

tested against such a needless cruelty on a broiling 
night and in that Cumsean cave. An excited gentle- 
man in front of me, too, whose mission I fancy was 
simply to protest against the spiritual character of the 
phenomena (which was never asserted) v/ould interrupt 
us all from time to time by declaring his intense satis- 
faction with it all. It was a splendid trick. We tried 
to convince him that his individual satisfaction was 
irrelevant to us, but it was, as Wordsworth says, " Throw- 
ing words away." It was a beautiful trick ; and he was 
satisfied, quite satisfied. 

The Dark Seance, which formed the second part of 
the performance, was a dreadful mistake. It was not 
only unsatisfactory in result, but — and no doubt this 
v/as the reason — it was so mismanaged as to threaten 
more than once to eventuate in a riot. Twelve or four- 
teen persons were to form a committee representing the 
audience, and to sit in a circle, with the Indescribable 
Phenomenon in their centre, while we remained below 
in Egyptian darkness and received their report. Of 
course we all felt that we — -if not on the committee — 
might just as well be sitting at home or in the next 
parish as in the cave of Cumae. The method of elect- 
ing the committee was briefly stated by Colonel Fay to 
be " first come first served," and the consequence was a 
rush of some fifty excited people on to the platform, 
with earnest requests on the part of the proprietary to 
be " still." There was no more stillness for the rest of 
the evening. The fifty were pruned down to about fif- 
teen of the most pertinacious, who would not move at 
any price ; in fact, the others only descended on being 
promised that the dark sitting should be divided into 
two, and another committee appointed. The Inde- 



A.V ''INDESCRIBABLE PHENOI^IENONr 209 



_scribable Phenomenon took her seat on the camp- 
stool in the centre, where she was to remain chipping 
her hands, to show she was not producing the manifes- 
stations. The gas was put out and darkness prevailed 
!- — darkness, but not silence. The disappointed and 
rejected committee men — and women — first began to 
grumble in the freedom which the darkness secured. 
The committee was a packed one. They were Spirit- 
ualists. This was vigorously denied by somebody, who 
said he saw a Press man in the circle, and therefore 
(such was his logic) he could not be a Spiritualist. All 
this time the Indescribable Phenomenon was clapping 
her hands, and now some of the more restless of the 
audience clapped theirs in concert. The guitar and fid- 
dle began to thump and twang, and the bells to ring, 
and then again the more refractory lunatics amongst 
us began to beat accompaniment on our hats. The 
whole affair was worthy of Bedlam or Hanwell, or, 
let us add, an Indescribable Phenomenon. 

The committee was changed with another rush, and 
those who were finally exiled from the hope of sitting 
took it out in the subsequent darkness by advising us 
to " beware of "our pockets." When Colonel Fay asked 
for quietude he was rudely requested " not to talk 
through his nose." It was not to be wondered at 
that the seance was very brief, and the meeting ad- 
journed. 

Now to describe the indescribable. If it be a spir- 
itual manifestation, of course there is an end of the 
matter ; but if a mere conjuring trick, I would call at- 
tention to the following facts : The fastening of Miss 
Fay's neck to the back of the cabinet at first is utterly 
gratuitous. It offers no additional difficulty to any 

14 



210 MYSTIC LONDON. 

manifestations, and appears only intended to prevent 
the scrutineers seeing beliind her. A very simple exer- .| 
cise of sleight-of-hand would enable the gallant Colo- 
nel to cut the one ligature that binds the two wrists, 
when, for instance, he goes into the cabinet with scis- 
sors to trim off the ends of the piece of calico in^ the 
opening trick. The hands being once free, all else is 
easy. The hands are never once seen during the per- 
formance. The committee can feel them, and feel the 
knots at the wrists ; but they cannot discover whether 
the ligature connecting the wrists is entire. 

The last trick, be it recollected, consists in the liga- 
ture being cut and Miss Fay's coming free to the front. 
If my theory is incorrect — and no doubt it is ruinously 
wrong — will she consent to omit the last trick and come ' 
to the front with wrists bound as she entered the cabi- 
net ? Of course, if I had suggested it, she would have ,| 
done it as easily as she cut out the tender infants for the \ 
'cute gentleman behind me ; so, to adopt the language 
of Miss Fay's fellow-citizen, I " bit in my breath and 
swallered it down." I adopted the course Mr. Maske- 
lyne told me he did with the Davenports, sat wdth my 
eyes open and my mouth shut. It is marvellous to see 
how excited we phlegmatic islanders grow when either 
spirits are brought to the front, or we think we have 
found out a conjuring trick. I am not going to follow^ 
the example of my gushing brethren, but I can safely !| 
say that if anybody has an afternoon or evening to' 
spare, he may do worse than go to the Cr}^stal Palace 
or the Hannover Square Rooms, to see a very pretty and', 
indescribable phenomenon, and to return as I did, %l 
wiser, though perhaps a sadder man, in the proud con-i* 
sciousness of having "found out how it is all done." 



Ji 



A LADY MESMERIST. 2 1 1 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

A LADY MESMERIST. 

"X 1 /"HEN a man's whole existence has resolved itself 
into hunting up strange people and poking his 
nose into queer nool<LS and corners, he has a sorry time 
of it in London during August ; for, as a rule, all the 
funny folks have gone out of town, and the queer nooks 
and corners are howling wildernesses. There is always, 
of course, a sort of borderland, if he can only find it 
out ; some peculiar people who never go out of town, 
some strange localities which are still haunted by them ; 
only he has to find them out — people and places — for 
it is so universally allowed now-a-days that all genteel 
people must be out of London in August, and all re- 
spectable places must be covered up in old newspapers, 
that it is difficult to get them to own the soft impeach- 
ment. 

However, there is one queer place that is never shut 
up, the Progressive Library in Southampton Row ; and 
Mr. Burns and the Spiritualists, as a rule, do not shut 
up shop even in August. Their Summerland lies else- 
where than Margate or the Moors ; and a valse with a 
pirouetting table, or a little gentle levitation or elonga- 
tion, delights them more than all the revels of the 
countryside. I was getting a little blase, I own, on the 
subject of Spiritualism, after my protracted experiences 
during the Conference ; and I do not think I should 
have turned my steps in the direction of the Progressive 



2J2 MYSTIC LONDON. 

Institution that week, had not the following announce- 
ment caught my eye as I scanned the ghostly pages of 
tht Medium and Daybreak :■ — 

"a mesmeric seance." 

"We have been authorized to announce that Miss 
Chandos, "whose advertisement appears in another part 
of this paper, will give a mesmeric seance at the Spiritual 
Institution, 15 Southampton Row, on Wednesday even- 
ing, August 19th, at eight o'clock. Admission will be 
free by ticket,. which may be obtained at the Institution. 
The object which Miss Chandos has in view is to inter- 
est a few truth-seekers who could aid her in promoting 
a knowledge of psychological phenomena. As a crowded 
meeting is not desired, an early application should be 
made for tickets." 

I do not know that I said " Eureka ! " Indeed, I 
have considerable historic doubts as to whether anybody 
ever did, but I felt it. I was a truth-seeker forthwith. 
I was resolved to sit at the feet of Miss Chandos, and, 
should her mesmeric efforts prove satisfactory, " aid 
her in promoting a knov.dedge of psychological phenom- 
ena." I did not go through the prescribed process of 
getting a ticket beforehand, because I thought, in my 
innocence, that everybody would be out of town, or that 
the hall of the Progressive Institute would certainly 
accommodate those who remained. Never was a more 
fatal mistake. The psychological folks were all in 
London, and the capacities of the Progressive Library 
are not palatial. Miss Chandos had a crowded meet- 
ing, whether she desired it or not. Genius will not be 
concealed : and Miss Chandos was learning that lesson 



A LADY MESMERIST. 213 

in a very satisfactory way. It was a sultry evening 
when a small boy opened the back door of the little 
first floor apartment in Southampton Row, and squeezed 
me in like the thirteenth in an omnibus, and I found 
myself walking on people's toes, and sitting down on 
their hats in the most reckless manner. At length, 
however, I struggled to a vacant corner, and deposited 
myself perspiring and expectant. 

Mr. Burns was " orating " on the revival mesmerism 
was destined to make, and telling us how, like the Plum- 
stead Peculiars, we should be able to do without doc- 
tors as soon as the healing powers of animal magnetism 
were properly recognized and diffused. I did not listen 
very carefully, I fear, for I was nervously looking 
about for Miss Chandos. Nervously, I say, because 
lady mediums and mesmerizers are so apt to run to eight- 
een stone, or be old and frumpish, that I had terrible 
fears lest I should be scared when I met Miss Chandos 
in the flesh. I was very agreeably surprised, however, 
for when Mr. Burns resumed — not his chair, but his 
table, since he sat on that article of furniture — a very 
pretty young lady indeed, of not more than eighteen or 
twenty years of age, took his place, and, in a few well- 
chosen words, said this was her first appearance as a 
public mesmerist, and claimed indulgence should any 
failure in the phenomena result. She also drew atten- 
tion to the fact that the apartment was "pernicious 
snug " (she put it, of course, in more scientific language), 
and straightway proceeded to business. 

When Miss Chandos invited patients to put them- 
selves in her hands, I thought the room had risen en 
masse. Ever3?body wanted to be mesmerized. I had 
no chance, in my retired position ; but she soon got a 



214 MYSTIC LONDON. 

front row of likely people, and I sat down once more, 
disappointed and exuding. 

She was a tall, active young lady was Miss Chandos, 
and had a mystic crop of long black curls, which waved 
about like the locks of a sybil when she made a lunge 
at an innocent-looking young man who sat No. i — and 
whom, with the other patients, I shall designate thus 
numerically. He seemed to like it immensely, and 
smiled a fatuous smile as those taper fingers lighted on 
his head, while the other hand rested on the frontal 
portion of his face, as though Miss Chandos were going 
to pull his nose. He was off in a moment, and sat 
facing the audience in his magnetic trance, looking like 
a figure at a wax-work show. Miss Chandos then 
passed on to a gentleman, No. 2, who never succumbed 
during the entire evening, though she made several 
onslaughts on him. Consequently I dismiss No. 2 as 
incorrigible fortliwith. No. 3 was a lady, who only gave 
way after a lengthened attack, and did not seem to 
appreciate the effect of Miss Chandos' lustrous eyes so 
much as No. i did. He gave signs of " coming to," 
but Miss Chandos kept looking round at him and at 
No. 2, while she was attending to No. 3, and directly 
she did this No. i closed his eyes, and slept the sleep 
of innocence again. 

Having reduced No. 3 to a comatose condition. Miss 
Chandos reverted to No. i, and, by attractive passes, 
got him on his legs, and made him follow her up and 
down the limited space at her disposal. She looked 
then like a pretty Vivien manipulating a youthful Mer- 
lin ; and I was not at all surprised at the effect of her 
"woven paces and her waving hands." She asked him 
his name, and he told her. It was W . " No," she 



A LAJ)y MESMERJS T. 215 

Wid " it's Jones. Mary Jones. What's your name ? " 
but the youth was not quite so far gone as to rebaptize 
ihimself with a female cognomen just yet. He stuck to 
Ibis W , and Miss Chandos put him into his waxwork 
.'position again, and got No. 3 on her legs at last, but did 
Inothing more with her than malce her walk up and 
Idown. Presently No. 3 woke up, and was put to air at 

the window. , u- u 1 

No 4 was now selected, in the person of a big burly 
man ; and I could not help thinking, as she mampulated 
him, what a capital pose it would have been for Hercules 
and Omphale. He seemed to like it exceedingly, and, 
I thought, was dropping comfortably off, when he whis- 
pered something to his operator (I have no notion wha 
Ihe feminine of that word is), who fixed her brilliant 
eyes on somebody near me-I feared it was actually 
o„ „e-and said, " Somebody at the back of the room 
is exercising control. I shall be glad if they will re- 
frain " I was quite innocent of exercising conscious 
control, and did not quite know what the phrase meant. 
I certainly had once or twice thought it must be much 
pleasanter to be operated upon by so pretty a young lady 
than by some bull-necked male mesmerist or aged 
spinster above mentioned ; but I could scarcely believe 
that such a mild sentiment could affect that colossal 
man However, I recollected the delicacy o. these 
psychological relations, and sat down conscience-stricken 
and warmer than ever. 

Miss Chandos selected No. 5 in the person of a young 
man with a nascent mustache, who had successfully 
strucTled into the front row at the outset. He promised 
welUt first; but, like other young men with incipient 
mustaches, disappointed us afterwards. Then came 
No. 6 uDon the scene. 



2i6 MYSl'IC LOXDOJV. 

No. 6 was a lady who came late, and at once pushed 
to the front with the air of a person who was not doing 
so for the first time. She went oif in a moment— far 
too suddenly, in fact, and then did everything she was 
■ 'Id in a very obedient way. Being told that she was 
in a beautiful garden, she stooped down on the floral 
carpet and proceeded to gather materials for a bouquet. 
I confess I did not care about No. 6, and was proceed- 
ing to read Professor Tyndall's Belfast Address, which 
I had in my pocket, when Miss Chandos looked up No. 
I again. 

Reduced to a proper frame of mind, either by Miss 
Chandos' continued attentions or the contagion of No. 
6's docility, the youth was now all submission. He 
walked up and down any number of times like a tam.e 
animal at the Zoological Gardens, and now quite agreed 
that his name was Mary Jones. He sang "Tom Bow- 
ling" at command, and No. 6, not to be outdone, war- 
bled a ditty called, I think, "The Slave Girl's Love," 
the refrain of which, according to her version, was, " I 
cannot love, because I ha?n a slave." She broke down 
m the middle of this aspiring ditty, and then personated 
a Jew old clo' man, a woman selling " ornaments for 
your firestoves," and various other characters, all of 
which she overacted considerably. I may be wrong, of 
course, but I fancied the fair lecturess was as dissatis- 
fied with No. 6 as I was. The audience was an indul- 
gent one, and thought it splendid. Mr. Burns sat on 
the table and yawned. I relapsed into Tyndall, and 
wondered what he would have said about it all ; or, at 
least, I did not wonder, for I knew he would have con- 
signed us all to the nearest lunatic asylum as exceptions 
to the rule that the European has sJ many more cubic 
mches of cerebral development than the Papuan. 



A LADY MESMERIST. 217 

When it was drawing near ten, Miss Chandos brought 
the iDroceedings to a close by animating — like Pygma- 
lion — her waxwork statues. She apologized once more, 
in a few well-chosen sentences, for what she was pleased 
to call her "failure,'' but. the audience would not hear 
of the term, and applauded to the echo, only there was 
no room for an echo in the Progressive Institute. The 
young man. No. i, v. ho I found was a spirit medium, 
wound up by an address from his Indian guide on the 
subject of " control." 

I confess I failed to gather from the perambulating 
youth and maidens No. i and 3, or the impersonations 
of No. 6, any signs of the revival alluded to by Mr. 
Burns at the outset; and there was not the remotest 
connexion with the healing art. In fact, nobody seemed 
suffering from anything except heat. 

Miss Chandos said to me, however, in a sensible con- 
versation with which she favored me in private, that all 
she had attempted to show w^as but the lowest manifesta- 
tion of a power which had far higher ends in view. She 
doubted almost whether it was not something like 
sacrilege to use such a power for playing tricks and 
gratifying curiosity. 

She was thoroughly in earnest ; and labored both 
physically during the evening and logically in her after 
discourse, with an energy which some persons would 
have said was worthy of a better cause. 

It was nearly eleven when I left the miniature hall of 
the Progressive Institute, and as I passed along the 
streets, digesting what I had seen and heard during the 
evening, I took myself to task severely — as it is always 
well to do, if only to prevent somebody else doing it for 
me — and asked whether, if the lecturess had not been a 



2 T 8 MYSTIC LONDON. 

lecturess but a lecturer — if being a lecturess she weighed 
eighteen stone, or was old and wizen, or dropped her 
h's — whether I should have stayed three mortal hours 
in that stuffy room, and I frankly own I came to the 
conclusion I should not. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

A PSYCHOPATHIC INSTITUTION. 

"O EADING my Figaro the other day — as I hope I 
need not state it is my custom devoutedly to do — 
I came upon the following passage in the review of a 
book called " Psychopathy ; or, the True Healing Art. 
By Joseph Ashman. London : Burns, Southampton 
Row. We have not the pleasure of being personally 
acquainted with Joseph Ashman, and we fear that the 
loss is ours. Judging him through the medium of his 
book, he must, indeed, be a rara avis. . . . The 
one great thing," it went on to say, " that Joseph Ash- 
man wants the world to know is, that he cures diseases 
by very simple means. And all that the world wants to 
know from Joseph Ashman is, Are these cures real — are 
his statements facts ? Why, then, does not Joseph con- 
tent himself with his facts? He has plenty of them. 
Here i-s one — ' Seeing one day a cabman with a swollen 
face standing by a police court ready to prosecute a man 
who had assaulted him, I asked if, on condition I healed 
him, he would forgive his adversary. He repHed that 
he would, and we accordingly got into his cab together. 



A FS YCHOPA THIC INS TITUTION. 2 1 9 

fringing out the magnetized carte, I told him to look ar 
it, and at the same time made a few motions over the 
swelling with my hand. I then left him feeling much 
better, and returned in an hour's time, when I found 
him taking'a glass of beer with his antagonist, whom he 
had forgiven.' " 

Now as the one pursuit and end of my present exist- 
ence is the discovery of rarce aves, I need not say T at 
once took up the clue herein afforded, and went in pur- 
suit of Joseph Ashman. I found not only him but his 
institution, for Mr. Ashman does not work single hand- 
ed. It is in the Marylebone Road, almost opposite the 
Yorkshire Stingo ; and is most modest and unpretend- 
ing in its outward semblance, being situated in one of 
those semi-rustic houses so indicative of suburban Lon- 
don, down an overstocked garden, into which you enter 
by means of a blistered iron gate, painted violently 
green, and swinging heavily on its hinges. Down a 
vista of decrepit dahlias one sped to the portal, along- 
side which was a trio of bell-handles, one above the 
other, showing that the Psychopathic Institution did not 
occupy the -whole even of that modest domicile. I al- 
ways approach these manifold bells with considerable 
diffidence, conscious that I must inevitably ring the 
wrong one ; so, on this occasion, I rang none at all, but 
knocked a faint double knock on the knocker by way of 
compromise — very faint, indeed, lest I should disturb 
any patients who were being " psychopathized." While 
I waited I had leisure to observe that hidden among the 
dahlias, and thatched over as it were with a superan- 
nuated costermonger's barrow, was a double perambu- 
lator, which set me calculating the probabilities of Mr. 
Ashman being a family man. 



220 MYSTIC LONDON. 

The door was opened before I had settled the point 
to my own mental satisfaction by a short, cheery-look- 
ing man, with long, straight flaxen hair flowing down 
over the shoulders of his black frock-coat, a beard 
a few shades lighter, and a merry twinkling eye, 
which looked more sympathetic than psychopathic, and 
I should think was calculated to do patients good the 
moment it lighted on them. He looked as much as to 
ask whether I was psychopathically wrong, when I in- 
formed him that I had not come as a patient, but simply 
to inspect his institution if he would permit me. The 
permission was at once accorded. " We are hard at 
work," he said, as he ushered me into the front parlor, 
" but come in and see what we are about." 

A man who looked like a respectable artisan was sit- 
ting at a table ; and a second, in his shirt sleeves, was 
astride of a chair in what appeared to be rather an 
idiotic ride-a-cock-horse-to-Banbury-Cross fashion, and 
Mr. Ashman v/as pinching him and prodding him as 
butchers do fat animals at the Smithfield Show. 

" That there gentleman," said Mr. Ashman, in a 
broad provincial dialect, "couldn't get astride that chair 
when he came here half-an-hour ago. How d'ye feel 
now, sir ? " 

" Feel as though I should like to race somebody twenty- 
rods for five pound a-side," answered the patient, getting 
up and walking about the room as if it were a new sen- 
sation. He had been brought, it appeared, to Mr. Ash- 
man by his friend, who was an old psycopathic patient. 
He assured me he had suffered from rheumatism for 
twenty years, and was completely disabled without his 
stick until he came into that room half-an-hour since. 
He walked up and down stickless and incessantly as 
the carnivora at the Zoo all the time he v/as telling me. 



A PS YCHOPA THIC INS TITUTION. 2 2 1 

" Would you mind putting your ear to this man's 
back, sir? "said Mr. Ashman to me. I did so ; and when 
he bent, his backbone seemed to go off with a lot of 
little cracks like the fog-signals of a railway. " That 
there old rusty hinge we mean to grease." And away 
he went psychopathizing him again. When he was 
done, Mr. Ashman explained to me learnedly, and with 
copious illustrations from anatomical plates, his theoiy 
of this disease, which was his favorite one for treat- 
ment, because it yielded rapidly. Paralysis and that 
class of disease arc nuich slower. He had succeeded 
in acute rheumatism and also in calculus. "I like fat 
men — fighting men to heal," he said. "I leave the 
delicate ones to others." The sturdy little psychopath- 
ist looked healthy enough to heal a sick rhinoceros. 

While he was lecturing me his hands were not idle, 
I should think they seldom were. He was pouring 
salad oil from a flask on to flannel to give to the other 
man who was sitting at the table, and had approached 
convalescence from a chronic disease after one or two 
visits, and who used this oiled flannel to keep up the 
influence. Both the men seemed perfectly genuine ; 
and the rheumatic gentleman, when he left, pronounced 
the effect of his psychopathizing miraculous. The fee 
was five shillings. " I shan't charge you nothin' for 
the flannel," he said to No. 2. I began to take quite a 
fancy to Joseph Ashman, and thanked Figaro inwardly 
for directing me to the mstitution. 

A working woman who was next in the little row of 
patients assembled in the back room, came in with her 
wrists bound up in bits of flannel, and her hands look- 
ing puffed and glazy. She, too, had lost the use of 
them for six years, she told me, and had been pro- 



222 MYSTIC L ONDON. 

nounced incurable by the doctors. This was her fourth 
visit to Mr. Ashman. " Take up the chair, ma'am," he 
said to his patient ; and she did carry it in rather a 
wobbly fashion across the room, " Now the other 
hand," and she did it with the other hand. "Now 
show the gentleman how you did it when you came to 
me. She's rather hard o' hearin'," he explained to me j 
but after one or two repetitions the poor old body com- 
prehended, and carried it in her crooked elbow. " Now 
1^11 call my assistant," he said, and summoned a ruddy, 
red-bearded man, who looked as though he might have 
just come in from a brisk country walk. " When these 
eases require a good deal of rubbing, I let my assistants 
do the preliminary work, and then come in as the Heal- 
ing Medium myself." The rubbers, he infonned me, 
like the Medium, must be qualified, not only physi- 
cally, but morally. Benevolence was the great requi- 
site ; and certainly both these men seemed running over 
with it, if looks meant anything. When Joseph Ash- 
man took his turn, working the poor old patient's stiff 
wrists, and pulling her fingers till they cracked, like 
children playing " sweethearts," she never winced, but 
actually seemed to like it, and trotted off well satisfied 
with her fourth instalment of good health. 

The next rubber who was introduced to me was not 
such a ruddy man, being, in fact, rather saturnine in 
appearance ; but I could quite understand that he was, 
as he described himself, brimful of electricity. His 
chevelure was like that on the little man we stick on the 
conductor of an electrical machine and make each par- 
ticular hair stand on end like quills upon the fretful 
porcupine. 

I could not for the life of me see the difference be* 



A PS YCHOPA THTC INS TITUTIOiY. 223 

tween' this treatment and simple mesmerism, except 
that it was much more rapid in its effects than any- 
magnetic treatment I have ever witnessed. Indeed, I 
frankly confess I do not understand it novi^, though Mr. 
Ashman made me accept one of his little books on 
Psychopathic healing, and told me I should see the dis- 
tinction when I read it. I must be very dense, for I 
have read it diligently through, and still fail to trace the 
distinction. 

The man made a great impression on me. I felt he 
was just one of those who would carry life into a sick 
room, and communicate vital power — supposing it to be 
communicable — from the dumpy fingers of his fat, 
soft hand. The perambulator did not belie him. 
Numbers of pretty black-eyed children were running 
about, and there was a Mrs. Ashman somewhere among 
the poor patients in the back room. All the children 
came to me except the eldest boy, who, his father told 
me in a mysterious tone, had suffered some indignity at 
the hands of my cloth, and dreaded a parson ever 
after. I believe my injudicious brother had set him a 
long task (perhaps his Duty to his Neighbor), and the 
poor lad was always afraid he should be dropped down 
upon to " say it." Mr. Ashman's book is a little be- 
wildering to an outsider who fails to distinguish the two 
vital forces. He says : " It is much rarer to find a 
high development of a temperament in which the psy- 
chical element prevails, than in which it is well blended 
with the vital-magnetic, or than in wdiich the latter ex- 
cels. In nearly all popular public men there is a blend- 
ing of the two. We see it well exemplified in John 
Bright, Spurgeon and others. This is the secret of 
their drawing, magnetic power. It is the secret, too, of 



224 MYSTIC LONDON: 

many a physician's success ; his genial magnetism 
cures when his medicine is useless, although, of course, 
he does not know it. As is the difference between 
these two forces, so is the -difference in the method of 
their employment for the purpose of cure." However, 
when I left I promised — and I mean to keep my vow- 
that if ever I am unfortunate enough to find my verte- 
brae creaking " like an old hinge," I will come to Mr. 
Ashman and have it greased. The remark in his book 
as to the success of medicine depending on the quali- 
ties of him who administered it was, we may recollect, 
confirmed at the 1874 meeting of the British Associa- 
tion in Belfast. 

Joseph Ashman has had a chequered history. He 
has dwelt in the tents of the Mormonites; has been 
one of the Pecuhar People. In early life he was in 
service in the country, where his master used to flog 
him until, to use his own expression, he nearly cut him 
in two. His earliest patients were cattle. " For a 
healer," he said, " give me a man as can clean a win- 
dow or scrub a floor. Christ himself, when he chose 
those who were to be healers as well as preachers, chose 
fishermen, fine, deep chested men depend upon it, sir," 
and he rapped upon his own sonorous lungs until they 
reverberated. He was certainly blessed with a super- 
abundance of good health, and looked benevolent 
enough to impart all his surplus stock to anybody who 
wanted it. 



A PHRENOLOGICAL EVENING 225 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

A PHRENOLOGICAL EVENING. 

nPHE experience I am about to chronicle occurred 
•^ when the Beecher-Tilton scandal was at its height ; 
and I was attracted by tlie somewhat ambiguous title 
" Burns upon Beecher." 

Mr. James Burns, the spirited proprietor of the Pro- 
gressive Library, Southampton Row, having devoted 
himself to the study of phrenology, has for some time 
past held a series of craniological sea?ices on Tuesday 
evenings, at which he " takes off " the head of some 
well-known person, or your own, if you like, whether you 
are well-known or born to blush unseen, not in the way 
of physical decapitation, but by the method of phrenolo- 
gical diagnosis. I greatly regretted having, on a pre- 
vious occasion, missed the analysis of Dr. Kenealy's 
cerebral developments. I believe the Claimant himself 
was once the object of Mr. Burns' remarks ; but when 
Mr. Beecher's cranium was laid down for dissection at 
the height of the Beecher-Tilton sensation_, I could resist 
no longer, but, despite all obstacles, repaired to the 
Institute of Progress. 

x\bout a score of people were gathered in that first- 
floor front where I had seen so many strange things. 
Of these persons some formed the regular phrenological 
class conducted there weekly by Mr. Burns. The others 
were, generally speaking, of the ordinary lecture-audience 
type. One stout lady occupied an easy-chair in a corner, 
and slept from first to last. 



226 MYSTIC LONDON. 

The first part of the lecture was a little discursive, 
I fancy for my especial benefit, and summarized Mr. 
Burns' system, which is to a great extent original. 
Beginning by a disavowal of all dogmas, he began by- 
advancing what was to me the entirely novel doctrine, 
that the brain was not the sole organ of the mind, but 
that the whole organism of man had to be taken into 
account in the diagnosis of character, since the entire 
body was permeated with the mind. The bones, fluids, 
and viscera were all related to mental phenomena. The 
lecturer even questioned whether the science he pro- 
mulgated was properly termed phrenology. It certainly 
did not answer to the conventional idea of that craft. 
Referring to a calico diagram which was pinned to the 
curtains of the first-floor front, and at which he pointed 
with a walking-stick, Mr. Burns notified four divisions 
of the animal frame — i, the vital organs ; 2, the mechan- 
ical ; 3, the nervous (which in the lower orders were 
ganglionic only); 4, the cerebral apparatus. He de- 
fended the animal powers from the debased idea usually 
attached to them, and pointed out their close connexion 
with the spirit, nearer to which they were placed than 
any portion of the economy. 

He then proceeded to apply his preliminary remarks 
to preachers in general. Theodore Parker, for instance, 
was a man of spare body and large brain. He was sur- 
rounded by intellectual people, and his disciples were 
quite sui genet-is. On the other hand, Spurgeon was a 
man of strong animal and perceptive powers, and so 
able to send the Walworth shopkeepers into ecstasies. 
His ganglions were big, as was the case in all great 
preachers. Emotion, he said, was more a matter of 
bowels than of brain. The ganglionic power carried 



A PHRENOLOGICAL EVENING. 227 

the brain \ but there were, of course, combinations of 
all grades. 

In the case of Henry Ward Beecher, two of whose 
photographs he held in his hand, he dwelt on the disad- 
vantage of having only the shadow instead of the sub- 
stance of his head to deal with. Here, he said, we had 
all the elements on a large scale. The brain, thoracic 
system, osseous structure, and abdominal development 
were ail in excess. The face was, as it were, the picture 
of all. Henry Ward Beecher was emphatically a large 
man. The blood was positive j the circulation good. 
The digestion was perfect, and the man enjoyed good 
food. Especially the length from the ear to the front 
of the eyebrows denoted intellectual grasp. There was 
not much will power. Whatever he had done (and Mr. 
Burns emphatically disclaimed passing any judgment 
on the " scandal ") he had not done of determination, 
but had rather " slid into it." He was no planner. 
He gathered people round him by the " solar " force of 
his mind. If he had been a designing man — if largely 
developed behind the ears — he would have gone to work 
in a different way. There was good development in 
the intellectual, sympathetic, and emotional part of 
his nature ; and this combination made him a popular 
preacher. There was more than mere animal magnet- 
ism needed to account for this ; there was intellectual 
power, but not much firmness or conscientiousness. If 
he were present, he would probably acknowledge that 
something had led him on to do whatever he had done 
in spite of himself. What was very peculiar in the man 
was his youthfulness. He had been before the world 
for forty years. Mr. Fowler, the phrenologist, of Lud- 
gate Circus, had been a fellow student of Beecher, and 



2 28 MYSTIC LONDON. 

had measured his head, which he ascertained to have 
grown an inch in ten years. Beecher was essentially a 
growing man — growing like a boy. The ganglionic 
power was that which kept people always growing, and 
was the great means of their getting a hold over other 
people. 

Mr. Burns then passed in review the three portraits 
of Beecher, Tilton, and Mrs. Tilton respectively, in the 
Pictorial World. Mrs. Tilton he described as a neg- 
ative person, inclined to be hysterical and "clinging." 
There was in her a high type of brain, morally, intellec- 
tually, and spiritually. Still the brain, he said, did not 
make us good or bad. Again repudiating all judgment 
as to the scandal, he dwelt upon the close social rela- 
tionships between Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, and re- 
curred to the strong vital influence of the former, com- 
paring it to that of Brigham Young upon his " spiritual 
affinities." In all probability, taking into account the 
different natures of Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, whatever 
had occurred " the people couldn't help themselves." 

Then as to Theodore Tilton. Mr. Burns had read 
the Golden Age, and pronounced it a smart publication. 
There was, however, in Tilton a want of ganglionic 
power j he w^as all brain. He was a man who might 
be read, but he could not lecture or preach. His was a 
higher mind than Beecher's, but not one that would 
command much human sympathy. 

Suppose Mrs. Tilton were not the wife of either, her 
relations to each might be conscientious, but still vio- 
late the laws of monogamic life. The influence of 
Beecher over her would be ganglionic as well as intel- 
lectual ; that of Tilton purely intellectual : when lo, a 
gust of ganglionic power would supervene on the lat- 
ter, and carry all before it. 



A PHRENOLOGICAL EVENING. 229 

Concluding his analysis of Mr. Beecher thus, Mr. 
Burns discovered that he had two clerics among his 
audience, and asked us — for I was one of them — if we 
would be examined. I readily consented, and handed 
my notes to Miss Chandos (the young lady mesmerist, 
whose seance I reported a few pages back) to report 
progress. She, therefore, is responsible for the diagno- 
sis that follows. 

Handling me from head to foot, much as a fancier 
does a prize ox at Smithfield, Mr. Burns found the life 
power good, and the muscles well nourished, the work- 
ing faculties being in a high state of activity. The 
head — I blush to hear — measured one inch beyond the 
average of a man of my size, and the cerebral faculties 
were harmoniously organized. I had large perceptive 
powers ; and my human nature (wherever that may be 
located) was full, as was also firmness. The thinking 
sphere was good. I should have made, Mr. Burns 
informed me, a good sculptor or artist. 

Omitting one or two complimentary remarks which 
Miss Chandos has faithfully, if not flatteringly, reported, 
and the enunciation of which quite confused me as I 
sat the centre and cynosure of that wondering group, I 
was glad to learn that I was an open man, though pos- 
sessed of sufficient caution and not defective in moral 
courage. In fact " pluck " was large. I really wished 
Mr. Burns would relieve me by finding some bad bumps ; 
but no — the worst he could say of me was that I was 
restless. What chiefly seemed to strike him, though, 
were my vital powers, and he really covered me with 
confusion when he began to calculate my Beecher 
powers on a possible Mrs. Tilton. However, he toned 
down this remark by noticing that my domestic faculties 



230 MYSTIC LONDON. 

were well developed. My faith and hope were small 
I was a "doubting" man. The positive and negative 
were well blent in me, and I was also ''mediumistic.'"' 

The diagnosis of two ladies concluded the evening's 
exercises, but neither of these personages displayed any 
very remarkable traits ; Mr. Burns declaring he felt 
some difficulty in discovering the bumps under the 
" back hair." 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

A SPIRITUAL PICNIC. 

TN a volume bearing the title of Mystic London it 
would seem perchance that Spiritualism, as par 
excellence the modern mystery, should stand first. I 
have thought it better, however, to defer its treatment 
somewhat, working up to it as to a climax, and then 
gently descending to mundane matters once more ere I 
close my present work. 

Of London at this hour, just as of Rome in the later 
Republic and Empire, it may be safely affirmed that 
there is in its midst an element of the mysterious and 
occult utterly undreamed of by the practical people. 
Many phases of this element have already been treated 
of in my different M^orks ; and I add some of the more 
exceptional as properly belonging to my present subject. 

Now I candidly confess that, up to a recent date, I 
had not given Spiritualists — qua spiritualists — credit for 
being a cheerful or convivial people. Though there 
exist upon the tablets of my memory recollections of 



A SPIRITUAL PICNIC. 



231 



certain enjoyable dinners, cosy teas, and cliarming petits 
soupers., eaten at tlie mahogany of believers in the 
modern mystery, yet these were purely exceptional 
events, oases in the desert of spiritualistic experiences. 
Generally speaking, the table, instead of groaning under 
its accumulated bounties, leapt about as if from the 
absence thereof ; and the only adjuncts of the inhospit- 
able mahogany were paper tubes for the spirit voices, 
handbells for the spirit hands, and occasional accordions 
and musical boxes for the delectation of harmonious 
ghosts. It was a " flow of soul " if not always a " feast 
of reason ; " but, as regarded creature comforts, or any 
of the ordinary delights of mundane existence, a very 
Siberian desert. A grave subject of discussion (I am 
not, I assure you, indulging in a sepulchral pun) at the 
recent Liverpool Conference was how to feed mediums, 
and I fancy the preponderating opinion was that fasting 
was a cardinal virtue in their case — -a regimen that had 
come to be in my mind, perhaps unfairly, associated with 
sea?tces in general. I was glad, therefore when I read 
in the columns of the Mediiifn the announcement of the 
spiritual ' picnic or "demonstration," at the People's 
Garden, Willesden. Still I wanted to see Spiritualists 
enjoy themselves in the " normal condition." I sym- 
pathized with the avowed object of .the gathering, that 
the followers of the new creed should know one another, 
as surely the disciples of a common school ought to do. 
Armed, therefore, with a ticket, I proceeded, via the 
North London Railway, to the scene of action. It was 
not what we materialistic people should call a fine 
August day. It was cold and dull, and tried hard to 
rain ; but it was far more in keeping with the character 
of the meetinor than what Father Newman calls the 



232 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



"garish day " one looked for in mid- August. In the 
words of the circle the " conditions were excellent ; " 
and as I journeyed on, reading my Medmni like a true 
believer, I marvelled to see, by the evidence of its 
advertisements, how the new creed had taken hold of a 
certain section, at all events, of society. Besides a 
dozen public mediums who paraded their varied attrac- 
tions at terms ranging from 2S, 6d. to 21s., there were 
spiritualistic young men who put forward their creed as 
a qualification for clerkships — perhaps they had no other 
claim — spiritual lodging-house keepers, and even spirit- 
ual undertakers, all pervaded by what we may literallj' 
call a common esprit de corps. 

In due course we reached the People's Garden, the 
popular title whereof seemed to have been given on 
the lucLis a no?i principle, for the London folk have not, 
as yet, affected it largely. Why this should be so one 
cannot guess, for it is the very ideal of a Cockney Para- 
dise, and is admirably worked by a body of shareholders, 
most of whom belonged to the artizan class, though 
under very distinguished patronage indeed. When I 
got to the grounds the Spiritualists were indulging in a 
merry-go-round during a refreshing drizzle. A tempo- 
rary rush under cover ensued, and then the weather be- 
came more favorable, though the skies preserved their 
neutral tint. Mrs. Bullock, a suburban medium, who 
had become entranced, had located herself in a bower, 
and beckoned people from the audience to receive her 
"benediction," which was given in a remarkable dialect. 
I- thought it was Yorkshire, but a spiritualistic gentleman 
explained to me that it was '' partly North American 
Indian." The Osborne Bellringers next gave a cam- 
panological concert, which was exceedingly good of its 



A SPIRITUAL PICNIC. 



233 



kind, the small gentleman who played the bass bell 
working so actively as to suggest the idea that he could 
not long sun^ive such hard labor in his fleshy condition. 
These campanologists are said to be big mediums, and 
occasionally to be floated or otherwise spirited during 
their performances ; but nothing abnormal occurred at 
the People's Garden. Then there was dancing on the 
monster platform, which is, I should think, correctly 
described as " the largest in the world." This was in- 
deed a new phrase of Spiritualism : the terpsichorean 
spiritualists generally let their tables do the dancing for 
them, as Eastern potentates hire their dancing-girls. 
Donkey-races, croquet, and other unspiritual diversions 
varied the order of proceedings ; and as for the one-and- 
ninepenny teas, I can only say I should think the Garden 
Committee did not get much profit out of them, for the 
Spiritualists regaled themselves in the most material 
fashion. During the afternoon the arrivals were fast 
and frequent. All the medium-power of London seemed 
present ; and the only wonder was that we were not all 
floated bodily away. There was Mrs. Gupp}^, who, in 
answer to my demand whether she had been " floated " 
from Highbury, informed me that she had come far less 
romantically — " nine in a cab ! " There was Dr. Monk, 
too, a Nonconformist clergyman, who had lately been 
taking aerial journeys of the Guppy order about Bristol. 
In fact the elite of the sect were well represented ; and 
during the whole afternoon, despite the dirty-looking 
day, the fun was fast and furious, and all went merry as 
the proverbial marriage bell. 

Part of the programme was an entertainment by a 
gentleman bearing the delightfully sepulchral name of 
Dr. Sexton, whose mission in life it is to " expose '" the 



234 MYSTIC LONDON. 

tricks of Dr. Lynn and Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke. 
How those gentlemen are to be " exposed," seeing they 
only claim to deceive you by legerdemain, I cannot com- 
prehend ; but they make the Spiritualists very angry by 
taking their names in vain on the handbills of the 
Egyptian Hall, and more than insinuating that there was 
a family liken"ess between their performances ; and, con- 
sequently, the conjurors were to be " exposed ; " that is, 
the public were to have their visit to the Temple of 
Magic spoilt by being shown beforehand how the tricks 
were done. Aided by an expert assistant named Organ, 
Dr. Sexton soon let us into the mysteries of the cabinet 
business, which seemed just as easy as making the t.g'g 
stand on end — when you know how. It is perfectly 
true that, after hearing Dr. Sexton's exposition — rather 
than expose — it is quite easy for any one to frustrate the 
designs of these clever conjurors, if he wishes to do so. 
I am not sure that the expose is wise. Illogical people 
will not see the force of Dr. Sexton's argument, and 
will possibly think it " proves too much." If so much 
can be done by sleight of hand and ingenious machin- 
ery, they will argue, perhaps, that the Davenports and 
other mediums are only cleverer conjurors still, or have 
better machinery. Alas ! all my fairyland is pasteboard 
now. I know how the man gets out of the corded box 
— I could do it myself. I know where the gorilla goes 
when he seems lost in the magic cabinet. It is all a 
clever combination of mirrors. The blood-red letters of 
some dear departed friend are only made with red ink 
and a quill pen, and the name of the " dear departed " 
forged. Well, I suppose I am illogical, too. If one set 
of things is so simple when it is shown to you, why may 
not all be ? I fear the Willesden outins: has unsettled 



'& 



A GHOSTLY CONFERENCE. 



235 



my convictions, and shaken my faith in most sublunary 
things. 

The gathering clearly proved the growth of Spiritual- 
ism in London. That such numbers could be got to- 
gether in the dead season bespeaks a very extensive 
ramification indeed. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

A GHOSTLY CONFERENCE. 

A DISTINCT and well-marked epoch is reached in 
the history of any particular set of opinions when 
its adherents begin to organize and confer, and the in- 
dividual tenets become the doctrines of a party. Such 
a culmination has been attained by the believers in 
Modern Spiritualism. For a long while after the date 
of the now historical Rochester Rappings, the manifes- 
tations were mostly individual, and in a great degree 
limited to such exercises as Mr. Home's elongation, 
Mrs. Guppy's flight from Highbury to Lamb's Conduit 
Street, or, more recently still, the voices and manipula- 
tions of John and Katie King, the orations of Mrs. 
Hardinge, Mr. Morse, and Mrs. Tappan. But all this 
was spasmodic, and not likely to take the world by 
storm, while Spiritualists had adopted the time-honored 
maxim — " Magna est Veritas et prevalehity Therefore 
they must organize. They have done so, not without 
protest on the part of some of the most noted of their 
adherents ; but the majority carried the day, and the re- 



236 MYSTIC LONQON.- 

suit is the British National Association of Spiritualists, 
which has recently been sitting in solemn conclave at its 
first Annual Conference in Lawson's Rooms, Gower 
Street. 

Now I plead guilty to being greatly interested in this 
subject of Spiritualism generally, and in the doings of 
the Conference in particular. I cannot help thinking 
that clergymen and scientists ought to look into any set 
of opinions whose professors have attained the dimen- 
sions of this body. Their doctrines have spread and 
are spreading. Already the Spiritualists number among 
them such men as Mr. Alfred Wallace, Mr. Varley, Mr. 
Crookes, Mr. S. C. Hall, etc., and are extending their 
operations amongst all classes of society, notably among 
the higher. I could even name clergymen . of all de- 
nominations who hold Spiritualistic views, but refrain, 
lest it should seem invidious, though I cannot see why 
it should be incongruous for the clergy to examine doc- 
trines which profess to amplify rather than supplant 
those of revelation, any more than I can why scientists 
stand aloof from what professes to be a purely positive 
philosophy, based upon the inductive method. So it is, 
however; Spiritualism is heterodox at once in its relig- 
ious and philosophical aspects. I suppose that is why 
it had such special atrraction for me. Certain it is, I 
have been following the ghostly conference like a de- 
votee. 

We began on Monday evening with a musical soiree 
at the Beethoven Rooms, in Harley Street ; and there 
was certainly nothing ghostly or sepulchral in our open- 
ing day ; only then there was nothing very spiritualistic 
either. For a long time I thought it was going to be 
all tea and muffins and pianoforte. By-and-by, however, 



A GHOS TL Y CONFERENCE. 237 

Mr. Algernon Joy read a report of the organization, 
which was rather more interesting than reports gener- 
ally are, and Mr. Benjamin Coleman, a venerable gen- 
tleman, the father of London Spiritualists, delivered 
a Presidential address. Still there were no ghosts — 
not even a spirit rap to augment the applause which 
followed the speakers. Once my hopes revived when 
two new physical mediums, with letters of recommenda- 
tion from Chicago, were introduced, and I expected to 
see the young gentlemen elongate or float round the 
room ; but nothing of the kind occurred ; and a young 
lady dashed my hopes to the ground by singing "The 
Nightingale's Trill." Mr. Morse gave an address iu 
the trance state — as I was afterwards informed ; but he 
looked and spoke so like an ordinary mortal that I 
should not have found out that he was in an abnormal 
condition. 

I fear I went home from Harley Street not quite in 
so harmonious a frame of mind as could have been 
wished. 

The next morning (Wednesday) Dr. Gully presided 
at the opening of the Conference proper in Gower 
Street, where the rooms were more like vaults and 
smelt earthy. The President ably enough summarized 
the objections which had been raised to the Associa- 
tion, and also the objects it proposed to itself. He 
said : — " If the Association keeps clear of dogmatic in- 
trusion, then will there be no fear of its becoming sec- 
tarian. Already, however, there is a signal of dogma- 
tism among Spiritualists — and already the dogmatizers 
call themselves by another name. But the Association 
has nothing to do with this. It knows its function to 
be the investigation of facts, and of facts only ; and, as 



238 MYSTIC LONDON. 

was said, no sect was ever yet framed on undoubted 
facts. Now what are the facts of Spiritualism up to this 
date? They are reducible to two : — ist. The continued 
life and individuality of the spirit body of man after it 
has quitted its body of flesh; and, 2d. Its communion 
with spirits still in the flesh, under certain conditions, 
by physical exhibition and mental impression. Spirit 
identity cannot be regarded yet as an established fact — 
at all events, not so as to warrant us in building upon 
it." 

I was agreeably surprised with the moderate tone of 
this address ; and after a brief theological discussion, 
Mr. W. H. Harrison, the editor of the Spi?-itualist^ fol- 
lowed with a paper on Organization. I do not know 
that Mr. Harrison was not for organizing. Libraries, 
reading-rooms, colleges, everything was to be spiritual- 
ized. Later in the day there was a paper on Physical 
Manifestations. I should have preferred the manifes- 
tations v/ithout the paper, for I fear I am a poor be- 
liever at secondhand. The reader told some "stump- 
ing ' stories. Here is one as a specimen — spiritual in .,,, 
more senses than one : — ■ 'H 

" One evening I accompanied the Davenports to 
Mr. Guppy's residence in Great Marlborough Street. 
After supper, Ira, the eldest of the brothers, Mr. Gup- 
py, and myself, adjourned to a dark room, which Mr. 
Guppy had had prepared for experimental purposes. To 
get to this room we;,^ had to pass through a room that 
served the combined purposes of a sculptor's studio 
and a billiard room. Emerging from this room we 
came into a yard, in one corner of which the dark cab- 
inet in question was constructed. Taking our seats, we 
extinguished the light. Mr. Guppy was at the time 



A GHOSTLY CONFERENCE. 239 

smoking a cigar. This was at once taken from his 
hand, and carried in the air, where it could be seen by 
the light given out by its combustion. Some whisky 
and water was standing on the table. This was handed 
to us to drink. When it came to my turn, I found there 
was but little left in the glass. This I pointed out. 
The glass was forthwith taken from my mouth, and re- 
plenished and brought back again." 

On Thursday Mr. Everitt read a paper on Direct 
Writing by Spirits, telling us that on one occasion nine 
hundred and thirty-six words were written in six sec- 
onds. Mr. Everitt must be a bold man — I don't mean 
altogether for asking us to believe that, but for saying 
what he did about the medium, who was his wife : — 
" There are many considerations why it would be im- 
possible for the medium to have produced these writ- 
ings. For instance, we have sixteen papers upon the 
same subject, and in those papers there are a great 
many ancient authors referred to. Mrs. Everitt has 
never read nor seen a single book of any of these au- 
thors, and, with a few exceptions, their names had never 
been heard "by her before, much less did she know the 
age they lived in, the country they belonged to, the 
works they had written, or the arguments made use of 
for the defence of their doctrines and teachings. Be- 
sides the above reasons there are physical and mental 
difficulties which preclude the possibility of their being 
produced by the medium. The physical impossibility 
is the marvellous rapidity of their production, as many 
as 936 words having been written in six seconds. The 
mental difficulty is that the medium has not a logical mind. 
Like most females, she takes a shortcut by jumping to 
conclusions. She does not, indeed cannot, argue out 



240 MYSTIC LONDON. 

any proposition by the ordinary rules of logic. Now the 
papers referred to show that the author or authors are 
not only well acquainted with ancient lore and the clas- 
sics, but also possessed very high ability as logicians. 
For the above reasons we conclude that the medium, 
from sheer incapacity, both mentally and physically, 
could not have written these papers, nor any other 
human being under the same circumstances. We are 
therefore absolutely driven, after looking at the subject 
from every conceivable point of view, to conclude re- 
specting their production that they came from a super- 
natural source, and were produced by supernatural 
means." 

In the afternoon of this day a clergyman, whose name 
it would be highly indecorous in me to mention, descant- 
ed on the aspect of Spiritualism from his point of view 
in the Church of England. I understood the purport of 
the paper to be (i) that he claimed the right of members 
of the Church of England to investigate the phenomena ; 
(2) that, if convinced of their spiritual origin, such con- 
viction need not shake the investigator's previous faith. 
If the clergyman in question really said no more than 
the printed reports of the Conference represent him to 
have done, he rather reversed the conduct of Balaam, 
and cursed those he came to bless. This is the curt 
rhum'e that went forth : — 

" The Rev. read a paper, in v/hich he defined his 

position with regard to Spiritualism as that of a mere 
inquirer, adding that even if he became convinced of 
its truth, he saw no reason why he should alter the 
opinions he at present held as a clergyman of the Church 
of England. After eighteen months' inquiry into the 
subject, however, he was, perhaps^ more of a skeptic than 



A GHOSTLYXONFERENCE. 241 

before/' If that was all the clergyman in question had 
to say for the Association, they must rather regret they 
ever " organized " him, and might well pray to be saved 
from their friends ; but I heard it whispered — presumably 
by a spirit voice — that there had been a passage at arms 
between the lady secretary and the clerg}anan in ques- 
tion, and that Miss — but no, I must not mention names 
— the fair official punished the delinquent with that most 
awful penalty — silence. 

Friday finished the Conference with a trance paper — 
I did not know there were such things — dictated to Mrs. 
Cora Tappan by invisible guides, and was read by Miss 
— I mean by the fair incognita above-mentioned. Not 
a manifestation — literally not the ghost of one — only 
this very glowing peroration : — " But it is in a larger 
sense of social, mental, political, and even religious ren- 
ovation, that Spiritualism is destined to work its chief 
results. The abrogation of the primal terror of man- 
kind, the most ancient spectre in the world of thought, 
grim and shadowy Death, is, in itself, so vital a change 
that it constitutes a revolution in the world of mind. 
Chemistry has already revealed the wonderful fact that 
no ultimate atom can perish. The subtle chemistry of 
Spiritualism steps in where science ceases, gathering up 
the ultimate atoms of though^nto a spiritual entity and 
proving them imperishable. Already has this thought 
pervaded the popular mind, tinged the decaying forms 
of theology and external science with its glow, and made 
the life of man a heritage of immortal glory. More 
than this, taking spirit as the primal basis of life, each 
individual, and all members of society and humanity in 
the aggregate, must for ever strive to express its highest 
life {i.e. the life of the spirit.) The child will be taught 

16 



242 MYSTIC LONDON. 

from within, external methods being employed only as 
aids, but never as dictators of thought. Society will be 
the flowing out of spiritual truths, taking shape and sub- 
stance as the expression of the soul. Governments will 
be the protecting power of a parent over loving children, 
instead of the dictates of force or tyranny. Religion 
will wear its native garb of simplicity and truth, the off- 
spring of the love and faith that gave it birth. Modern 
Spiritualism is as great a solvent of creeds, dogmas, 
codes, scientific sophisms, as is the sunlight of the sub- 
stances contained in earth and air, revealing by the 
stages of intermediate life, from man, through spirits, 
angels, archangels, seraphim, and cherubim, to God, 
the glorious destiny of every soul. There is a vine 
growing in the islands of the tropic seas that thrives best 
upon the ancient ruins or crumbling walls of some edifice 
built by man j yet ever as it thrives, the tiny tendrils 
penetrate between the fibres of the stone, cutting and 
cutting till the whole fabric disappears, leaving only the 
verdant mass of the foliage of the living vine. Spirit- 
ualism is to the future humanity what this vine is to the 
ancient ruin." 

There was another paper coming on " Compound 
Consciousness," but the tkle did not attract me. After 
my four days' patient waiting for ghosts who never came 
and spirits that would not manifest, I felt, perhaps, a 
little impatient, put on my hat and left abruptly — the 
fair secretary, of whom I shall evermore stand in supreme 
awe, scowling at me when I did so. As I passed into 
Gower Street — sweet, serene Gower Street, sacred from 
the wheels of profane cabmen, I was almost surprised to 
see the " Materialized " forms around me ; and it really 
was not until I got well within sound — and smell — of 



AN E VENINCrS DIABLERIE. 2 4 

the Underground Railway that I quite reahzed my 
abased position, or got out of the spheres whither the 
lofty periods of Mrs. Tappan's paper, so mellifiuously 
delivered, had wafted me ! 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

AN evening's diablerie. 

TV /TR. Spurgeon, a short time since oracularly placed 
^ ^ it on record that, having hitherto deemed Spirit- 
ualism humbug, he now believes it to be the devil. This 
sudden conversion is, of course, final ; and I proceed to 
narrate a somewhat exceptional endorsement of the 
opinion which has recently occurred within my own ex- 
perience. There was a time, how long ago it boots 
not to say, when /considered Spiritualism humbug; and 
a good deal came in my way which might have led me 
to the same conclusion as Mr. Spurgeon, if I had been 
disposed — which I am not — to go with a hop, skip, and 
jump. 

The investigator who first presented the " diabolical" 
theory to my notice was a French Roman Catholic 
priest, who had broken discipline so far as to enter the 
married state, but retained all the doctrines of his former 
faith intact. He had, in fact, anticipated to some extent 
the position of Pere Hyacinthe ; for it was several years 
ago I first became acquainted with him. Individually 
as well as nationally this gentleman, too, was prone to 
jump at conclusions. He lost a dear friend, and im- 



244 MYSTIC LONDON. 

mediately proceeded to communicate with the departed 
by means of table-turning and rapping. For a few days 
he was quite convinced of the identity, of the communi- 
cating spirit ; but then, and all within the compass of a 
single week, he pronounced the exorcism of the Catholic 
Church on the intelligence, I suppose experimentally in 
the first instance j found his challenge not satisfactorily 
answered, and immediately jumped to the conclusion 
that it was the foul fiend himself. I sat very frequently 
with this gentleman afterwards, prior to the experience 
I am about to narrate ; and certainly the intelligence 
always gave itself out to be the spirit-unmentionable to 
ears polite, whose presence my friend Iiad taken for 
granted. 

I once went with this gentleman to the Marshalls, 
when they were at their zenith. We arranged previously 
that he should not sit at the table, but on one side, and 
give me a secret signal when he was silently pronounc- 
ing the exorcism. He did so ; and certainly all mani- 
festations at once ceased, though we had been in full 
converse with the invisibles a moment before. Old 
Mrs. M. had to announce with much chagrin, " The 
sperrits is gone ! " 

My other partner in diablerie was a barrister whom I 
must not mention by name, but who possessed con- 
siderable power as a writing medium. The presiding 
intelligence in his case was, however, of a low character, 
and given to very bad language. He avowed himself 
to have been a bargee in the earth-plane — should one 
say the water-plane 1 — and certainly swore like one. 

As for myself, I am destitute of all " medium-power,'* 
whatever that may be, though enthusiastic spirituelle 
ladies tell me I am " mediumistic " — a qualification 



AN EVENING'S DIABLERIE. 



245 



which is still more occult to me. I own to be greatly 
interested in spiritualistic inquiries, except as regards 
dark seafices, which have a tendency to send me to 
sleep ; and I believe that my presence does not " stop 
manifestations ; " so that I suppose I am not a hopeless 
skeptic. 

On the occasion of which I am about to speak we met 
in my study, where I am in the habit of rearing a few 
pet snakes. I had just got a fine new specimen ; 
and having no proper habitation for it, had turned my 
waste-basket upside-down on a small chess table, and left 
him to tabernacle under it for the night. This was the table 
we generally used for seances ; and my legal friend, who 
was writing, immediately began to use most foul lan- 
guage, on the subject of the snake, exhorting me to 
" put him anywhere, put him in the cupboard, old boy." 
Such was the edifying style of communication we always 
got through this worthy limb of the law, but it was 
so much worse than usual on the present occasion as to 
fairly make us roar at its insane abuse. The gentleman 
himself, I ought to add, is by no means prone to profane 
swearing. - My priestly friend was making a wide- 
awake hat reply by tilts ; and still got his old reply that 
his Satanic Majesty was personally present. I did not 
in the least credit this assertion, any more than I 
accepted as proven the identity of the bargee, though I 
hold the impersonation in either cases to be a strange 
psychological fact. That I did not do so is best evidenced 
by the circumstance that I said, "This spirit asserts 
himself to be his Satanic Majesty. Have you either of 
you any objection to communicate with him supposing 
such to be the case ? " 

Neither one or the other had the slightest. My 



2^6 MYSTIC LONDON. 

Catholic friend, I knew, always carried a bottle of lioly 
water in his pocket, and at my entreaty forbore for the 
moment to exorcise. The legal gentleman, though a 
^'writer" himself, was not at all convinced about the 
phenomena, as was perhaps natural, seeing the exceed- 
ingly bad company to which it professed to relegate him. 
As for me, my skepticism was to me robur et ess triplex, 
I disposed of the snake, put out the gas ; and down we 
three sat, amid profound darkness, like three male 
witches in " Macbeth," having previously locked the 
door to prevent any one disturbing our hocus-pocus. 

Any one who has sat at an ordinary dark seance will 
recollect the number of false starts the table makes, the 
exclamations, " Was that a rap ? " when the wood 
simply cracks, or, " Did you feel a cold air .? " when 
somebody breathes a little more heavily than usual. I 
have myself made the experiment, though not without 
adding an open confession immediately afterwards. I 
have blown on the fingers of the sitters, and made them 
feel sure it was a sph^it aura., have done the neatest 
of raps with my index-finger when my little finger has 
been securely hooked in that of my next neighbor. In 
fact, for test purposes, dark seances are a mistake, 
though they are admirable for a flirtation. 

On this occasion, however, we were very much in earn- 
est, and there was no waiting — I hope no collusion. I am 
quite sure I did not myself consciously produce any 
manifestation. I can answer for my legal friend, as far 
as any one person can answer for another ; and we neither 
of us suspected — or suspect — the priest of the order of St. 
Benedict ; only we would rather he had not pronounced 
such decided opinions ; because the wish might have 
been father to the thought, or rather the thought might, in 



I 



AN EVENINGS DIABLERIE. 



247 



some utterly unaccountable way, have produced the 
effects that followed. I have an idea that if Mr. Spur- 
geon in his present frame of mind were to sit at a table 
for manifestations, he would obtain the clearest assur- 
ance that it was " all the devil," just as it is well known 
Roman Catholic sitters get communications from Roman 
Catholic spirits, theists from theistic, and Mormons from 
the denizens of some spiritualistic Utah. 

We had not, on this occasion, a moment to wait. The 
table forthwith began to plunge and career about the 
room as though the bargee — or the other personage 
himself — had actually been " in possession." It required 
all our agility to follow it in its rapid motion about the 
room. At last it became comparatively quiet ; and I 
received in reply to a question as to who was present the 
exceedingly objectional name which Mr. Spurgeon has 
coupled with the whole subject. Some persons I know 
entertain a certain amount of respect, or at all events 
awe, for the intelligence in question. For myself I feel 
nothing of the kind, and therefore I added, " If you are 
what you profess to be, give us some proof." We were 
sitting with only the tips of our fingers on the table ; but it 
forthwith rose up quite perpendicularly, and came down 
with a crash that completely shivered it in pieces. I 
have not the slightest idea how it was done — but it cer- 
tainly was don^. A large portion of the table was 
reduced to a condition that fitted it for Messrs. Bryant 
and May's manufactory. When we lighted the gas and 
looked at our watches we found we had only been sitting 
a very few minutes. 

Of course the obvious explanation will be that the 
gentleman with the diabolical theory and the evidently 
strong will-power (as evidenced in the denouement at Mrs 



248 MYSTIC LONDON. 



Marshall's) produced the diabolical effects consciously 
or unconsciously. I do not think the former was the 
case ; and. if it is possible to get such results uncon- 
sciously, that phenomenbn is quite as curious as the 
spiritualistic explanation. In fact I am not sure that 
the psychological is not more difficult than the pneu- 
matological theory. My own notion is that the " Psy- 
chic Force " people are clearly on the right track, 
though their cause, as at present elaborated, is not yet 
equal to cover all the effects. 

Mr. Spurgeon and the " diabolists " concede the 
whole of the spiritualistic position. They not only say 
that the effects are due to spiritual causes, but they also 
identify the producing spirit. I have never been able 
to get as far as that. I did not feel on the occasion in 
question at all as though I had been in communication 
with his sable Majesty. If I was, certainly my respect 
for that potentate is not increased, for I should have 
fancied he would have done something much "bigger" 
in reply to my challenge than smash up a small chess- 
table. However, there was a sort of uncanny feeling 
about the experience, and it seemed to me so far illus- 
trative of Mr. Spurgeon's position as to be worth com- 
mitting to paper. If that gentleman, however, lends 
such a doctrine the sanction of his approval, he will, let 
him be assured, do more to confirm the' claims of Spirit- 
ualism than all the sneers of Professors Huxley and 
Tyndall, and the scorn of Mr. George Henry Lewis can 
undo. 



I 



SPIRITUAL ATHLETES. 249 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

SPIRITUAL ATHLETES. 

T AM about for once to depart from my usual custom 
■^ of narrating only personal experiences, and in this 
and the two following chapters print the communications 
of a friend who shares my interest in these matters, and 
has frequently accompanied me in my investigations 
into this mysterious Borderland. In these cases, how- 
ever, he investigated on his own account, and I am not 
responsible for the conclusions at which he arrives : 

" Attracted," he says, " by an article in a popular 
journal on the subject of ' Spirit Faces,' I determined, 
if possible, to ' assist ' at a seance. I had not hitherto 
taken much interest in spiritualistic matters, because in 
the first place, the cui bojio question remained persist- 
ently unanswered ; and, secondly, because most of the 
' doings ' were in the dark \ and it appears to me that, 
given darkness, there are few things in the way of con- 
juring and ventriloquism that could not be done. Terp- 
sichorean tables and talking hats never had any par- 
ticular charm for me, because I could always make a 
table dance, or a hat say anything I wanted it to say. 
I saw the Davenports, and preferred Professor Ander- 
son. I even went to a dark seance at the Marshalls', 
and noticed that when Mr. and Mrs. Marshall had per- 
ceptibly partaken of beefsteak and onions, or some 
equally fragrant food, for dinner, the breath which ac- 
companied the spirit-voices was unmistakably impreg- 



2^0 MYSTIC LONDON. 

nated with onions too \ and hence I drew my own con- 
clusions. I am not saying I know how Mr. and Mrs. 
Marshall do John King and Katie King. I don't know 
how Professor Anderson or Professor Pepper do their 
tricks. I confess Mr. Home and the Marshalls have 
the pull of the professors in one way — that is, they don't 
perform on a platform but in a private room, and they 
let you examine everything beforehand. Theirs is the 
ars celare artem. Again, I don't know how men in the 
street get out of the very curious knots in which I have 
tied them, but I know they do it ; and therefore I am 
sure the Davenports could do it without calling in the 
ghost of one's deceased grandmamma as a sort of Dens 
— or rather Dea — ex machina. I have never seen Mr. 
Home handle fire or elongate. I have seen him ' levi- 
tate,' or float, and I candidly confess I don't know how 
he does it, any more than I can solve Sir David Brews- 
ter's trick by which four young ladies can lift a heavy 
man on the points of their fingers. It's very mysterious, 
and very nice for the man. 

" So it happened that I had shelved spiritualism for 
some time, when the article on ' Spirit Faces ' came 
under my notice. I did not care so much about the 
[ace part of the matter (at least not the spirit face), but 
I wanted to test it as a matter of athletics. In one re- 
spect the physiognomy did interest me, for I read that 
the medium was pretty — mediums, according to my ex- 
perience, being generally very much the reverse — and I 
found that report had certainly not misrepresented the 
young lady in this respect. Her name is now public 
property, so I need not veil it under the pseudonyms of 
Miss Blank, or Asterisk, or anything of that sort. Miss 
Florence Cook, then, is a trim little lady of sweet six- 



SPIRITUAL ATHLEl'ES. 251 

teen, and dwells beneath the paternal roof in an eastern 
suburb ot London. It is quite true she does not accept 
payment for seaiiccs, which I strove to impress upon 
her was very foolish indeed, for she works almost as 
hard as Lulu twice in the week. However, she, or rath- 
er her parents, take high ground in the matter, which of 
course is very praiseworthy on their parts, and conven- 
ient for their guests if they happen to be impecunious, 

" Now, I do not purpose going through the details of 
the seance^ which was considerably irksome, being pro- 
tracted by endless psalm singing. What I want to do 
— ^with Miss Cook's permission — is to calculate the 
chances of her being sufficiently athletic to perform the 
tricks herself, without the aid of spirits. Does she not 
underrate her unaided powers in assigning a super- 
natural cause for the effects produced ? 

" Well, then, this lithe little lady is arrayed in the 
ordinary garb of the nineteenth century with what is 
technically termed a " pannier," and large open sleeves, 
each of which, I fear, she must have found considerably 
in the way, as also the sundry lockets and other nick- 
nacks suspended from her neck. However, there they 
were. We put her in a cupboard, which had a single 
Windsor chair in it, and laid a stoutish new cord on her 
lap. Then came singing, which may or may not have 
been intended to drown any noise in the cupboard ; but, 
after some delay, she was found tied around the waist, 
neck, and two wrists, and the ends of the cord fastened 
to the back of the chair. These knots we sealed, and 
consigned her to the cupboard again. Shortly after 
there appeared at an aperture in the upper portion of 
the cupboard a face which looked utterly unspiritual and 
precisely like that of the medium, only with some white 



252 MYSTIC L OND ON. 

drapery thrown over the head. The aperture was just 
the height that would have allowed Miss Cook to stand 
on the chair and peep out. I do not say she did ; I am 
only calculating the height. The face remained some 
minutes in a strong light ; then descended. We opened 
the cupboard, and found the little lady tied as before 
with the seals unbroken. Spiritual, or material, it was 
clever. 

"After a pause, the same process was gone through 
again ; only this time stout tape was substituted for rope. 
The cord cut the girl's wrists ; and tape was almost 
more satisfactory. Again she was bound, and we sealed 
the knots ; and again a face appeared — this time quite 
black, and not like the medium at all. I noticed that 
the drapery ran right round the face, and cut it oif at a 
straight line on the lower part. This gave the idea of a 
mask. I am not saying it was a mask. I am only 
throwing out a hint that, if the ' spirits ' wish to con- 
vince people they should let the neck be well seen. I 
am bound to say it bore a strong light for several min- 
utes ; and some people say they saw eyelids. I did 
not. I do not say they were not there. I know how 
impossible it is to prove a negative, and only say I did 
not see them. 

" What followed possessed no special interest for any 
but the professed spiritualist, as it was done without any 
tying ; Miss Cook arguing logically enough that, if the 
previous manifestations were clearly proved to have 
taken place by other agency than that of the medium 
herself, mere multiplication of proofs was unnecessary. 
I had only gone to study the matter from an athletic 
point of view; and I certainly came away impressed 
with the idea that, if Miss Florence Cook first got into 



SPIRITUAL ATHLETES. 



253 



and then got out of those knots, she was even more 
nhnble and lithesome than she looked, and ought to 
start an Amateur Ladies' Athletic Society forthwith. As 
to her making faces at us through the window, I did not 
care sufficiently about the matter to inquire whether she 
did or not, because, if she got out of the 'ropes, it was 
easy enough to get on the chair and make faces. 

"Of course the cui bono remains. The professors 
make money by it ; and Miss Cook can make at most, 
only a little mild and scarcely enviable notoriety. A 
satirical old friend of mine, when I told him the above 
facts, chuckled, and said, ' That's quite enough for a 
girl of sixteen ; and anything that's do-able, a girl of 
those years will do.' It was no use talking to him of 
panniers and loose sleeves, and lockets. He was an 
old bachelor, and knew nothing about such things. At 
least, he had no business to, if he did. 

" I cannot forbear adding a domestic episode, though 
it is perhaps scarcely relevant to the subject. Certain 
young imps in my house, hearing what I had seen, got 
up an exhibition of spirit faces for my benefit. They 
rigged up a kind of Punch-and-Judy erection, and the 
cleanest of them did the spirit face, with a white pocket- 
handkerchief over his head. He looked as stolid and 
unwinking as the genuine spirit-physiognomy itself. 
The gas was lowered to a 'dim religious light,' and then 
a black coal-scuttle, with features v^halked on it, de- 
ceived some of the circle into the idea that it was a 
nisfi^er. But the one element which interested me was 
wanting ; there was no rope-tying which could at all 
entitle the juvenile performance to be categorized under 
'Spiritual Athletics.'" 



254 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



CHAPTEPv XL. 

^'spotting" spirit mediums. 

** A MONG the recent utterances of spiritualistic 
"^^ organs is one to the effect that ' manifestations ' 
come in cycles — in ' great waves,' I believe was the 
actual expression ; and of the many fluctuations to 
which spiritualistic society has been exposed of late is 
a very prominent irruption of young lady mediums. 
The time seems to have gone by for portly matrons to 
be wafted aerially from the northern suburbs to the 
W. C. district, or elderly spinsters to exhibit spirit 
drawings v/hich gave one the idea of a water-color 
palette having been overturned, and the resulting ' mess ' 
sat upon for the purpose of concealment. Even inspira- 
tional speakers have so far 'gone out' as to subside 
from aristocratic halls to decidedly second-rate institu- 
tions down back streets. In fact, the 'wave' that has 
come over the spirit world seems to resemble that which 
has also supervened upon the purely mundane arrange- 
ments of Messrs. Spiers and Pond; and we anxious 
investigators can scarcely complain of the change which 
brings us face to face with fair young maidens in their 
teens, to the exclusion of the matrons and spinsters 
aforesaid, or the male medium who was once irreverently 
termed by a narrator a ' bull-necked young man.' 

"The names of these interesting young denizens of 
two worlds are so well known that it is perhaps unneces- 
sary caution or superfluous gallantry to conceal them j 



" SPO TTING " SPIRIT MEDIUMS. 255 

but I will err, if error it be, on the safe side, and call 
No. I Miss C. and No. 2 Miss S., premising only that 
each is decidedly attractive, with the unquestioned 
advantage of having seen only some sixteen or seventeen 
summers apiece. Miss C. has been 'out' some time ; 
her familiar being * Katie King;' while Miss S. has 
made her debut more recently, having for her attendant 
sprites one ' Florence Maple,' a young lady spirit who 
has given a wrong terrestrial address in Aberdeen, and 
Peter, a defunct market gardener, who sings through 
the young lady's organism in a clear baritone voice. It 
was to me personally a source of great satisfaction when 
I learnt that Miss C. had been taken in hand by a 
F. R. S. — whom I will call henceforth the Professor — 
and Miss S. by a Sergeant learned in the law. Now, if 
ever, I thought, we have a chance of hearing what 
science and evidential acumen have to say on the sub- 
ject of ' Face Manifestations.' Each of these gentlemen, 
I ought to mention, had written voluminously on the 
subject of Spiritualism, and both seemed inclined to 
contest its claims in favor of some occult physical — or, 
as they named it, psychic — force. This would make 
their verdict the more valuable lo outsiders, as it was 
clear they had not approached the subject with a fore- 
gone conclusion in its favor. True, the Spiritualists 
claimed both the Professor and the Sergeant persistently 
as their own ; but Spiritualists have a way of thinking 
everybody ' converted ' who simply sits still in a deco- 
rous manner, and keeps his eyes open without loudly 
proclaiming skepticism. 

" Personally I had been, up to the date of present 
occurrences, accustomed to summarize my convictions 
on the subject by the conveniently elastic formula that 



356 MYSTIC LONDON. ' 

there might be ' something in it.' I still think so ; but 
perhaps with a difference. 

" For the former of the two exposes — if such they 
shall be deemed — I am compelled to rely on documen- 
tary evidence ; but I have ' sat ' so many times with 
Miss S., have been requested so often by the inspira- 
tional Peter to ' listen to the whip-poor-will, a-singin' on 
the tree,' have shaken the spirit hand, gazed on the 
spirit face, and even cut off portions of the spirit veil of 
the fair Florence, that I can follow the order of events 
just as though I had been present, I must confess this 
wonderful similarity existing between Miss S. and Flor- 
ence had exercised me considerably, and perhaps pre- 
pared me to accept with calmness what followed. Why 
delay the result ? Miss S. and her mamma were invited 
to the country house of the learned Serjeant. A ' cabi- 
net ' was extemporized in the bay of the window, over 
which the curtains were drawn and a shawl pinned. 
With a confidence which is really charming to contem- 
plate, no ' tests ' were asked of the medium, no ' condi- 
tions ' imposed on the sitter. Miss S. was put in the 
cabinet with only a chair, and the expectant circle waited 
with patience. In due time the curtains were drawn 
aside, and the spirit-face appeared at the opening. It 
was still iho. facsimile of Miss S., with the eyes piously 
turned up, and a ghostly head-dress covering the hair. 
One by one the assembled were summoned to look more 
closely. The initiated gazed and passed on, knowing 
they must not peep ; but, alas, one lady who w^as noi 
initiated, and therefore unaware of the tacitly imposed 
conditions, imitated the example of Mother Eve, drew 
aside the curtains, and exposed the unspiritual form of 
Miss S. standing on the chair; the 'spirit-hands' at 



" SPO TTING " SPIRIT MEDIUMS. 257 

the same time struggling so convulsively to close the 
aperture that the head-gear fell off, and betrayed the 
somewhat voluminous chignon of Miss S. herself. 
Hereupon ensued a row, it being declared that the 
medium was killed, though eventually order was re- 
stored by the rather incongruous process of a gentleman 
present singing a comic song. The learned Serjeant still 
clings to the belief that Miss S. was in a condition of 
* unconscious somnambulism.' I only hope, if ever I am 
arraigned before him in his judicial capacity, he will ex- 
tend his benevolent credulity to me in an equal degree, 
and give me the benefit of the doubt. 

" It may be in the recollection of those who follow 
the fluctuations of the Spiritual ' wave ' that some 
months ago a dialectical gentleman seized rudely on 
the spirit-form of Katie, which struggled violently with 
him, scratching his face and pulling out his whiskers, 
eventually making good its retreat into the cupboard, 
where Miss C. was presumably bound hand and foot. 
I must confess the fact of that escape rather prejudiced 
me in favor of Katie, though I would rather she had 
evaporated into thin air, and left the dialectical whiskers 
intact. Still it scored a point on Katie's side, and I 
eagerly availed myself of the opportunity to pay my 
devoirs at the shrine of Miss C. ; the more so as 
the Professor had asserted twice that he had seen and 
handled the form of the medium while looking on and 
conversing with that of the spirit at the same time. 
If I could retain my former faith in the Professor, of 
course this would be final, and my conversion an ac- 
comphshed fact. 

" We sat no longer in the subterranean breakfast- 
room of Miss C.'s parental abode ; but moved up to 

17 



258 MYSTIC LONDON. 

the parlor floor, where two rooms communicated through 
folding doors, the front apartment being that in which 
we assembled, and the back used as a bed-room, where 
the ladies took off their ' things.' This latter room, be 
it remembered, had a second room communicating with 
the passage, and so with the universe of space in gen- 
eral. One leaf of the folding doors was closed, and a 
curtain hung over the other. Pillows were placed on 
the floor, just inside the curtain, and the little medium, 
who was nattily arrayed in a blue dress, was laid upon 
them. We were requested to sing and talk during 
' materialization,' and there was as much putting up 
and lowering of the light as in a modern sensation 
drama. The Professor acted all the time as Master of 
the Ceremonies, retaining his place at the aperture; and 
I fear, from the very first, exciting suspicion by his 
marked attention, not to the medium, but to the ghost. 
When it did come, it was arrayed according to orthodox 
ghost fashion, in loose white garments, and I must con- 
fess with no resemblance to Miss C. We were at the 
same time shown the recumbent form of the pillowed 
medium, and there certainly was something blue, which 
might have been Miss C, or only her gown going to the 
wash. By-and-bye, however, with ' lights down,' a 
bottle of phosphorized oil was produced, and by this 
weird and uncanny radiance one or two privileged 
individuals were led by the ' ghost ' into the back bed- 
room, and allowed to put their hands on the entranced 
form of the medium. I was not of the ' elect/ but I 
talked to those who were, and their opinion was that 
the ' gliost ' was a much stouter, bigger woman than 
the medium ; and I must confess that certain unhal- 
lowed ideas of the bedroom door and the adjacent 



*' SPO TTING " SPIRIT MEDIUMS. 259 

kitchen stairs connected themselves in my mind with 
recollections of a brawny servant girl who used to sit 
sentry over the cupboard in the breakfast-room. Where 
was she ? 

"As a final ho7i?ie bouche^ the spirit made its exit from 
the side of the folding dopr covered by the curtain, and 
immediately Miss C rose up with dishevelled locks 
in a way that must have been satisfactory to anybody 
who knew nothing of the back door and the brawny 
servant, or who had never seen the late Mr. Charles 
Kean act in the ' Corsican Brothers,' or the ' Courier of 
Lyons.' 

" I am free to confess the final death-blow to my belief 
that there might be ' something in ' the Face Manifes- 
tations was given by the effusive I'rofessor, who has 
* gone in ' for the Double with a pertinacity altogether 
opposed to the calm judicial examination of his brother 
learned in the law, and with prejudice scarcely becom- 
ing a F. R. S. 

" I am quite aware that all this proves nothing. 
Miss S. and Miss C. may each justify Longfellow's 
adjuration—" 

" Trust her not, she is fooling thee ; " 

and yet ghosts be as genuine as guano. Only I fancy 
the ' wave ' of young ladies will have to ebb for a little 
while ; and I am exceedingly interested in speculating as 
to what will be the next ' cycle.' From ' information I 
have received,' emanating from Brighton, I am strongly 
of opinion that babies are looking up in the ghost mar- 
ket, and that our next manifestations may come through 
an infant phenomenon." 



2 6o MYSTIC LONDON. 

CHAPTER XLI. 

A SEANCE FOR SKEPTICS. 

^^ ATTRACTED by the prominence recently given 
^^^ to the subject of Spiritualism in the Times, 
and undeterred by that journal's subsequent recanta- 
tion, or the inevitable scorn of the Saturday Review, 
I determined to test for myself the value of the testi- 
mony so copiously quoted by believers in the modern 
marvel. Clearly if certain published letters of the 
period were to be put in evidence, Spiritualism had very 
much the better, and Science exceedingly little to say 
for itself. But we all know that this is a subject on 
which scientific men are apt to be reticent. ' Tacere 
tutum est^ seems the Fabian policy adopted by those 
who find this new Hannibal suddenly come from 
across sea into their midst. It is moreover a subject 
about which the public will not be convinced by any 
amount of writing or talking, but simply by what it can 
see and handle for itself. It may be of service, then, if 
I put on record the result of an examination made below 
the surface of this matter. 

"Like most other miracles this particular one evi- 
dently has its phases and comes about in cycles. For 
a generation past, or nearly so, Modern Spiritualism 
has been so far allied with table-turning and mysterious 
rappings as to have appropriated to itself in conse- 
quence certain ludicrous titles, against which it vainly 
protests. Then cropped up ' levitations ' and ' elonga- 



A scejye fok skeptics. 261 

tions ' of the person, and Mr. Home delighted to put 
red-hot coals on the heads of his friends. None of 
these manifestations, however, were sufficient to make 
the spiritualistic theory any other than a huge petitio 
pf-incipii. The Davenports were the first to inaugurate 
on anything like an extended scale the alleged appear- 
ance of the human body, or rather 6f certain members 
of the human body, principally arms and hands, through 
the peep-hole of their cabinet. Then came ' spirit- 
voices ' with Mrs. Marshall, and aerial transits on the 
part of Mrs. Guppy j then the 'entire form of the de- 
parted ' was said to be visible chez Messrs. Heme and 
Williams in Lamb's Conduit Street, whose abode 
formed Mrs. Guppy's terminus on the occasion of her 
nocturnal voyage. Then came Miss Florence Cook's 
spirit-faces at Hackney, which were produced under a 
strong light, which submitted to be touched and tested 
in what seemed a very complete manner, and even held 
conversations with persons in the circle. Finally, I 
heard it whispered that these faces were being recog- 
nized on a somewhat extended scale at the seances of 
Mrs. Holmes, in Old Quebec Street, where certain 
other marvels were also to be witnessed, which decided 
me on paying that lady a visit. 

" Even these, however, were not the principal attrac- 
tions which drew me to the tripod of the seeress in Que- 
bec Street. It had been continually urged as an argument 
against the claims of Modern Spiritualism, first, that it 
shunned the light and clave to ' dark ' circles ; second- 
1}', that it was over sensitive on the subject of 'skep- 
tics.' Surely, we are all skeptics in the sense of inves- 
tigators. The most pretentious disciple of Spiritualism 
does not claim to have exhausted the subject. On the 



262 MYSTIC LONDON-. 

contrary, they all tell us we are now only learning the 
alphabet of the craft. Perhaps the recognized Spirit- 
faces may have landed us in words of one syllable, but 
scarcely more. However, the great advantage which 
Mrs. Holmes possessed in my eyes over all the pro- 
fessors of the new art was that she did not object to 
skeptics. Accordingly to Quebec Street I went, for the 
distinct purpose of testing the question of recognition. 
If I myself, or any person on whose testimony I could 
rely, established a single case of undoubted recognition, 
that, I felt, would go farther than anything else towards 
solving the spiritualistic problem. 

" I devoted two Monday evenings to this business ; 
that being the day on which Mrs. Holmes, as she 
phrases it, 'sits for faces.' On the former of the two 
occasions twenty-seven persons assembled, and the first 
portion of the evening was devoted to the Dark 
Seance^ which presented some novel features in itself, 
but was not the special object for which I was present. 
Mrs. Holmes, who is a self-possessed American lady, 
evidently equal to tackling any number of skeptics, was 
securely tied in a chair. All the circle joined hands ; 
and certainly, as soon as the light was out, fiddles, 
guitars, tambourines and bells did fly about the room 
in a very unaccountable manner, and when the candle 
was lighted, I found a fiddle-bow down my back, a gui- 
tar on my lap, and a tambourine ring round my neck. 
But there was nothing spiritual in this, and the voice 
which addressed us familiarly during the operation may 
or may not have been a spirit voice. 

" Mrs. Holmes having been released from some very 
perplexing knots, avowedly by spirit power, proceeded 
to what is called the ' Ring Test,' and I was honored 



A SCENE FOR SKEPTICS. 263 

by being selected to make the experiment. I sat in 
the centre of the room and held both her hands firmly 
in mine. I passed my hands over her arms, without re- 
laxing my grasp, so as to feel that she had nothing 
secreted there, when suddenly a tambourine, ring, jing- 
lers and all, was passed on to my arm. Very remark- 
able ; but still not necessarily spiritual. Certain clair- 
voyants present said they could witness the ' disintegra- 
tion' of the ring. I only felt it pass on to my arm. On 
the occasion of my second visit this same feat was 
performed on an elderly gentleman, a very confirmed 
skeptic indeed. This second circle consisted of twenty 
persons, many of them very pronounced disbelievers, 
and not a little inclined to be 'chaify.' However all 
went on swimmingly. 

" After about an hour of rather riotous dark seance, 
lights were re-kindled and circles re-arranged for the 
Face Seance, which takes place in subdued light. In 
the space occupied by the folding doors, between the front 
and back room, a large black screen is placed, with an 
aperture or peep-hole, about eighteen inches square, cut 
in it. The most minute examination of this back room 
is allowed, and I took care to lock both doors, leaving 
the keys crosswise in the key-hole, so that they could 
not be opened from the outside. We then took our 
seats in the front room in three or four lines. I myself 
occupied the centre of the first row, about four feet from 
the screen, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes sitting at a small 
table in front of the screen ; the theory being that the 
spirits behind collect from their ' emanations ' material 
to form the faces. Soon after we were in position a 
most ghostly-looking child's face appeared at the aper- 
ture, but was not recognized. Several other corpse 



264 MYSTIC LONDON.- 

like visages followed, with like absence of recognition. 
Then came a very old lady's face, quite life-like, and Mrs. 
Holmes informed us that the cadaverous, people were 
those only recently deceased. The old lady looked 
anxiously round as if expecting to be recognized, but 
nobody claimed acquaintance. In fact no face was 
recognized at my first visit. The next was a jovial Joe 
Bagstock kind of face, which peered quite merrily round 
our circle ; and, lastly, came a most life-like counte- 
nance of an elderly man. This face, which had a strange 
leaden ]ook about the eyes, came so close to the orifice 
that it actually lifted its grey beard outside. On the 
occasion of my second visit, a lady present distinctly 
recognized this as the face of her husband, and asked 
the form to show its hand as an additional mark of 
identity. This request was complied with, the figure 
lifting a thin, white, and — as the widow expressed it — 
' aristocratic ' hand, and kissing it most politely. I am 
bound to say there was less emotion manifested on the 
part of the lady than I should have expected under the 
circumstances ; and a young man who accompanied 
her, and who from the likeness to her must have been 
her son, surveyed his resuscitated papa calmly through 
a double-barrelled opera-glass. I am not sure that I 
am at liberty to give this lady's name ; but, at this 
second visit, Mrs. Makdougall Gregory, of 21 Green 
Street, Grosvenor Square, positively identified the old 
lady above-mentioned as a Scotch lady of title, well 
known to her. 

" I myself v;as promised that a relation of my own 
would appear on a future occasion ; but on neither of 
those when I attended did I see anything that would 
enable me to test the value of the identifications. The 



A SCENE FOR SKEPTICS. 26^ 

faces, however, were so perfectly life-like, with the soli- 
tary exception of a dull, leaden expression in the eye, 
that I cannot imagine the possibility of a doubt existing 
as to whether they belonged to persons one knew or 
not. At all events, here is the opportunity of making 
the test. No amount of skepticism is a bar to being 
present. The appearances are not limited to a privi- 
leged few. All see alike : so that the matter is removed 
out of the sphere of ' hallucinations.' Everything is 
done in the light, too, as far as the faces are concerned. 
So that several not unreasonable test-conditions are ful- 
filled in this case, and so far a step made in advance of 
previous manifestations. 

*' We may well indeed pause — at least, I know I did 
— to shake ourselves, and ask whereabouts we are "i Is 
this a gigantic imposture ? or are tlie Witch of Endor 
and the Cumsan Sibyl revived in the unromantic neigh- 
borhood of Marble Arch, and under circumstances that 
altogether remove them from the category of the mirac- 
ulous ? England will take a good deal of convincing on 
this subject, which is evidently one that no amount of 
^ involuntary muscular action,' or ' unconscious cerebra- 
tion,' will cover. What if the good old-fashioned ghost 
be a reality after all, and Cock Lane no region of the 
supernatural. 

" What then ? Why, one may expect to meet one's 
deceased ancestors at any hour of the day or night, pro- 
vided there only be a screen for them to ' form ' be- 
hind, and a light sufficiently subdued to prevent disin- 
tegration; with, of course, the necessary pigeon-hole 
for the display of their venerable physiognomies. On 
their side of the question, it will be idle to say, ' No rest ' 
but the grave ! ' for there may not be rest even there. 



266 MYSTIC LONDON. 

if Delphic priestesses and Ciimsean Sibyls come into 
vogue again ; and we may as well omit the letters R. I. P. 
from our obituary notices as a purely superfluous form 
of speech." 

* * * * * * 

Speaking now in my own proper person as author, I 
may mention — as I have purposely deferred doing up 
to this point — that a light was subsequently struck at 
Mrs. Holmes's Dark Seances^ and that the discoveries 
thus made rendered the seances a final one. Mr. and 
Mrs. Holmes retired, first to Brighton, and then to 
America. 

They were, at the time of my writing, holding suc- 
cessful seaiices at the latter place ; and public (Spiritual- 
istic) opinion still clings to the belief that Mrs. Holmes 
is a genuine medium. 



CHAPTER XLH 

AN EVENING WITH THE HIGHER SPIRITS. 

A T the head of social heresies, and rapidly beginning 
"^^ to take rank as a religious heresy as well, I have 
no hesitation in placing modern Spiritualism. Those 
who associate this latest mystery only with gyrating 
articles of furniture, rapping tables, or simpering plan- 
chettes, are simply in the abyss of ignorance, and 
dangerously underrate the gravity of the subject. The 
later development of Spirit Faces and Spirit Forms, 
each of which I have examined thoroughly, and made 



AN EVENFXG WITH THE HIGHER SPIRITS. 267 

the results of my observations public, fail to afford any 
adequate idea of the pitch to which the mania — if mania 
it be — has attained. To many persons Spiritualism 
forms the ultimatum, not only in science, but also in 
religion. ' Whatever the Spirits tell them they believe 
and do as devoutly as the Protestant obeys his Bible, 
the Catholic his Church, or the scientific man follows 
up the results of his demonstrations. That is, in fact, 
the position they assume. They claim to have attained 
in matters of religion to demonstration as clear and 
infallible as the philosopher does in pure science. They 
say no longer "We believe," but "We know." These 
people care little for the vagaries of Dark Circles, or 
even the doings of young ladies with " doubles." The 
flight of Mrs. Guppy through the air, the elongation of 
Mr. Home's braces, the insertion of live coals among 
the intricacies of Mr. S. C. Hall's exuberant locks, are 
but the ABC which have led them to their present 
advanced position. These physical " manifestations " 
may do for the neophytes. They are the initiated. I 
am the initiated ; or I ought to be, if patience and per- 
severance constitute serving an apprenticeship. I have 
devoted a good portion of my late life to the study. I 
have given up valuable evenings through several con- 
secutive winters to dark seances; have had my hair 
pulled, my head thumped with paper tubes, and suffered 
other indignities at the hands of the " Invisibles ; " 
and, worse than all, my friends have looked upon me 
as a lunatic for my pains, and if my enemies could 
have wrought their will, they would have incarcerated 
me as 7to?i compos^ or made an auto-da-fe of me as a 
heretic years ago. 

Through sheer length of service, then, if on no other 



268 MYS TIC L ONDON: . 

account, I had grown somewhat blase with the ordinary 
run of manifestations. Spirit Faces no longer interest 
me j for I seek among them in vain the lineaments of 
my departed friends. Spirit Hands I shake as uncon- 
cernedly as I do those of my familiar acquaintances at 
the club or in the street. I have even cut off a portion 
of the veil of Miss Florence Maple, the Aberdeen 
Spirit, and gone away with it in my pocket j so that it 
was, at all events, a nev/ sensation when I received an 
Invitation to be present at a trance seance^ where one of 
the Higher Spirits communicated to the assembled 
things undreamed of in mundane philosophy. The sit- 
ting was a strictly private one ; so I must not mention 
names or localities j but this does not matter, as I have 
no marvels in the vulgar sense of the word to relate : 
only Higher Teachings, which will do just as well with 
asterisks or initials as with the names in full. 

The scene, thenj'^as an artist's studio at the West 
End of London, and the medium a magnetic lady with 
whom I had frequently sat before, though not for the 
" Higher " teachings. Her instruction had so far come 
in the shape of very vigorous raps, which ruined my 
knuckles to imitate them, and in levitation of a small 
and volatile chess table, which resisted all my efforts to 
keep it to the paths of propriety. This lady was not 
young j and I confess frankly this was, to my thinking, 
an advantage. When I once told a skeptical friend 
about Miss Florence Cook's seance, and added, triumph- 
antly, " Why, she's a pretty little simple girl of sixteen," 
that clenched the doubts of this Thomas at once, for he 
rejoined, "What is there that a pretty little simpleg\x\ 
of sixteen won't do ? " Miss Showers is sweet sixteen, 
too ; and when " Peter " sings through her in a clear 



A A' E VENIi\'G WITH THE HIGHER SPIRITS. 269 

baritone voice, I cannot, despite myself, help the thought 
occasionally flitting across my mind, '' Would that you 
■ were six-and-twenty, or, better still, six-and-thirty, instead 
of sixteen ! " Without specifying to which of the two 
latter classes our present medium belonged, one might 
venture to say she had safely passed the former. She 
was of that ripe and Rubens-like beauty to which we 
could well imagine some " Higher " spirit offering the 
golden apple of its approval, however the skittish Paris 
of the spheres might incline to sweet sixteen. I had a 
short lime before sat infructuously with this lady, when 
a distressing contretemps occurred. We were going in 
for a dark seance then, and just as we fancied the rev- 
enants were about to justify the title, we were startled 
by a crash, and on my lighting up, all of the medium I 
could see were two ankles protruding from beneath the 
table. She had fainted " right off," as the ladies say, 
and it required something strong to bring her to. In 
fact, we all had a "refresher," I recollect, for sitting is 
generally found to be exhausting to the circle as well as 
to the medium. On the present occasion, however, 
everything was, if not en plein Jour, en plem gaz. There 
was a good deal of preliminary difficulty as to the choice 
of a chair for the medium. Our artist-friend had a lot 
of antique affairs in his studio, no two being alike, and 
I was glad to see the lady select a capacious one with 
arms to it, from which she would not be likely to topple 
off when the spirits took possession. The rest of us sat 
in a sort of irregular circle round the room, myself alone 
being accommodated with a small table, not for the pur- 
poses of turning (I am set down as " too physical ") but 
in order to report the utterances of the Higher Spirits. 
We were five " assistants " in all — our host, a young lady 



2 70 MYSTIC LONDON-. 

residing with him, another lady well known as a musical 
artiste, with her mamma and my unworthy self. In- 
stalled in her comfortable chair, the medium wen: 
through a series of facial contortions, most of which 
looked the reverse of pleasing, though occasionally she 
smiled benignantly par parenthese. I was told — or I 
understood it so — that this represented her upward pas- 
sage through different spheres. She was performing, in 
fact, a sort of spiritualistic "Excelsior." By way of 
assimilating our minds to the matter in hand, we dis- 
cussed the Apocryphal Gospels, which happened to be 
lying on the table j and very soon, without any other 
process than the facial contortions having been gone 
through, the medium broke silence, and, in measured 
tones of considerable benignity, said: "Friends, we 
greet you in the name of our Lord and Master. Let us 
say the Lord's Prayer." 

She then repeated the Lord's Prayer, with consider- 
able alterations from the Authorized version, especially, 
I noticed, inserting the Swedenborgian expressions, 
"the Heavens," "on earth;" but also altering the order 
of the clauses, and omitting one altogether. She then 
informed us that she was ready to answer questions on 
any subject, but that we were not bound to accept any 
teaching which she — or let us say they, for it was the 
spirits now speaking — might give us. " What did we 
wish to know 1 " I always notice that when this ques- 
tion is asked at a spirit circle everybody simultaneously 
shuts up, as though the desire for knowledge were dried 
at its source. Nobody spoke, and I myself was not 
prepared with a subject, but I had just been reviewing 
a Swedenborgian book, and I softly insinuated " Spir- 
itual Marriage." It was graciously accepted ; and cur 



AN EVENING WITH THE HIGHER SPIRITS. 



271 



Sibyl thus delivered herself : — Mankind, the higher 
Spirit or Spirits said, was originally created in pairs, 
and the soul was still dual. Somehow or other — my 
notes are not quite clear how — the parts had got mixed 
up, separated, or wrongly sorted. There were, however, 
some advantages in this wrong sorting, which was so 
frequent an accident of terrestrial marriage, since it was 
possible for people to be too much alike — an observa- 
tion I fancied I had heard before, or at least not so 
profound a one as to need a ghost " Come from the dead 
to tell us that, Horatio ! ". When the right halves did 
get together on earth the good developed for good, the 
evil for evil, until they got to the heavens or the other 
places — they were all plurals. Swedenborgianism has 
an objection to the singular number; and I could not 
fail to identify the teaching of the Higher Spirit at once 
with that of the New Jerusalem Church. Two prelim- 
inary facts were brought before us ; the Higher Spirits 
were in theology Swedenborgian, and in medical prac- 
tice homoeopaths. So was the Medium. Although 
there was no marriage in the spiritual world, in our 
sense of the term, there was not only this re-sorting and 
junction of the disunited bivalves, but there were actual 
" nuptials " celebrated. We were to be careful and 
understand that what terrestrials called marriage celes- 
tials named nuptials — it seemed to me rather a distinc- 
tion without a difference. There was no need of any 
ceremony, but still a ceremony was pleasing and also 
significant. I asked if it was true, as I had read in the 
Swedenborgian book, that all adult angels were married. 
She replied, " Yes ; they married from the age of 18 to 
24, and the male was always a few years older than the 
female." 



272 MYSTIC LONDON, 

There was a tendency, which I conthiually had to 
check, on the part of the Medium to wander off from 
matrimonial to theological subjects ; and the latter, 
though trite, were scarcely so heterodox as I expected. 
I had found most "spiritualistic " teaching to be purely 
Theistic. Love to God and man were declared to be 
the great essentials, and creeds to matter little. If a 
man loved truth, it was no matter how wild or absurd 
his ideas might be. The love of God might seem a 
merely abstract idea, but it was not so. To love good- 
ness was to love God. The love of the neighbor, in the 
sense of loving all one's kind, might seem hard, too ; 
but it was not really so. There were in the sphere 
where this Intelligence dwelt millions of angels, or good 
spirits, working for the salvation of men. 

I ought to mention that this lady, in her normal con- 
dition, is singularly reticent, and that the "communica- 
tions " I chronicle were delivered fluently in one un- 
broken chain of what often rose into real eloquence. 

So Christ came for the good of man, and Christ was 
not the only Messiah who had appeared on earth. In 
the millions of ages that had passed over our globe, and 
in the other planets of our solar system, there had risen 
up "other men filled with the spirit of good, and so 
Sons of God." I here tried to get at the views of the 
Higher Spirits on the Divinity of Christ, but found con- 
siderable haziness j at one time it was roundly asserted, 
at another it seemed to me explained away by such ex- 
pressions as I have quoted above. 

Our planet, I was informed, iiad been made the sub- 
ject of special care because we were more material, 
more " solid " than the inhabitants of any other orb. 
There was an essential difference between Christ and 



AN E VENING IVITH THE BIG HEP SPIRITS. 275 

all other great teachers, such as Buddha; and there 
were no historical records of any other manifestation of 
the Messiah than that we possessed ; but such manifes- 
tations had taken place. 

The Spirit then gave us an account of its surround- 
ings, which is, I believe, purely Swedenborgian. The 
" celestial " angels were devoted to truth, the " spiritual " 
angels to goodness ; and so, too, there were the Homes 
of the Satans, M^here falsehoods prevailed, and of the 
Devils, where evils predominated.. Spirits from each of 
these came to man and held him in equilibrio ; but 
gained power as his will inclined towards them. The 
will was not altogether free, because affected by inher- 
ited tendencies ; but the " determination " was. I have 
no idea what the Higher Spirit meant by this ; and I 
rather fancy the Higher Spirit was in some doubt itself. 
It rather put me in mind of the definition of metaphy- 
sics : "If you are talking to me of what you know no- 
thing about, and I don't understand a word of what you 
are saying — that's metaphysics." 

All can do good, continued the Sibyl. Evil can- 
not compel you. Utter only such an aspiration as, 
" God help me," and it brings a crowd of angels round 
you. From those who came to them from this world, 
however, they (the Higher Spirits) found that teachers 
taught more about what we were to think than what we 
were to do. Goodness was so easy. A right belief 
made us happier ; but right action was essential. 

Pushed by our host, who was rather inclined to 
" badger " the Higher Spirit, as to irresistible tenden- 
cies, the Intelligence said they were not irresistible. 
When we arrived in the Spirit World we should find 
everything that had occurred in our lives photographed. 

18 



274 MYSTIC LONDON. 

You will condemn yourselves, it was added. You will 
not be '' had up '' before an angry God. You will decide, 
in reference to any wrong action, whether you could 
help it. Even in the act of doing it a man condemns 
himself; much more so there. The doctrine of the 
Atonement was summarily disposed of as a " damnable 
heresy." " Does the Great Spirit want one man to die ? 
It hurts us even to think of it ! " 

I then questioned the Medium with regard to the res- 
urrection of the body ; and was told that man, as orig- 
inally created, was a spiritual being, but had " superin- 
duced " his present body of flesh — how he managed it I 
did not quite gather. As to possible sublimation of 
corporeal integument, the case of ghosts was mentioned. 
It was to no purpose. I gently insinuated I had never 
seen a ghost, or had the existence of one properly au- 
thenticated. I was told that if I fired a pistol through 
a ghost only a small particle of dust would remain which 
could be swept up. I was not aware that even so much 
would remain. Fancy ''sweeping up" a Higher 
Spirit I 

I could not help once or twice pausing to look round 
on this strange preacher and congregation. The com- 
fortable-looking lady propped in an arm-chair, and with 
an urbane smile discoursing on these tremendous topics, 
our little congregation of five, myself writing away for 
dear life, the young hostess nursing a weird-looking 
black cat; the other young lady continually harking 
back to "conjugal" subjects, which seemed to interest 
her j the mamma slightly flabbergastered at the rather 
revolutionary nature of the communications ; and our 
host every now and then throwing in a rude or caustic 
remark. I dreaded to think what might have been the 



AN EVENING IVI7Y/ THE HIGHER SPIRITS. 275 

result of a domiciliary visit paid by a Commissioner in 
Lunacy to that particular studio ! 

Back, then, the musical young lady took us to conju- 
gal pairs. It was very difficult to convey to us what 
this conjugal love was like. Was it Elective Affinity ? 
I asked. Yes ; something like that, but still not that. 
It was the spontaneous gravitation in the spheres, either 
to other, of the halves of the dual spirit dissociated on 
earth. Not at all — again in reply to me — like flirting in 
a corner. The two, when walking in the spheres, looked 
like one. This conjugal puzzle was too much for us. 
We " gave it up ; " and with an eloquent peroration on 
the Dynamics of Prayer, the seance concluded. 

The Lord's Prayer was again said, with even more 
varieties than before ; a few extemporaneous supplica- 
tions were added. The process of coming-to seemed 
even more disagreeable, if one may judge by facial ex- 
pression, than going into the trance. Eventually, to 
get back quite to earth, our Sibyl had to be demesmer- 
ized by our host, and in a few minutes was partaking of 
a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee as though she had 
never been in nubibus at all. 

What the psychological condition had been I leave 
for those more learned than myself to determine. That 
some exaltation of the faculties took place was clear. 
That the resulting intelligence was of deep practical im- 
port, few, I fancy, would aver. Happily my mission is 
not to discuss, but to describe ; and so I simply set 
down my experience in the same terms in which it was 
conveyed to me as " An Evening with the Higher 
Spirits." 



276 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

SPIRIT FORMS. 

OOME years ago I contributed to the columns of a 
^ daily paper an article on Spirit Faces, which was 
to me the source of troubles manifold. In the first place, 
the inquirers into Spiritualism, whose name I found to 
be legion, inundated me with letters, asking me to take 
them to the house of pretty Miss Blank, the medium. 
Miss Blank might have been going on till now, holding 
nightly receptions, without having exhausted her list of 
self-invited guests j I had but one answer; the lady was 
a comparative stranger to me, and not a professional 
medium ; ergo, the legion must ask some one to chap- 
erone them elsewhere. Spirit Faces had got compar- 
atively common and almost gone out since I wrote. We 
are a long way beyond faces now. Then, again, my 
second source of trouble was that forthwith, from the 
date of my writing, the Spiritualists claimed me for 
their own, as Melancholy did the young gentleman in 
Gray's elegy. Though I fancied my paper was only a 
calm judicial statement of things seen, and I carefully 
avoided saying whether I was convinced or not, I found 
myself nolens vole?is enrolled among the initiated, and 
expected to devote about five evenings out of the seven 
to skances. I did go, and do go still to a good many; 
so that I feel pretty well posted up in the '' Latest In- 
telligence " of the Spiritual world. But the worst of all 
is that my own familiar friends, in whom I trusted, have 



SPIRIT FORMS. 277 

albo lifted up their heels against me — I mean metaphor- 
ically, of course. " What's the last new thing in spirits ?" 
they ask me out loud in omnibuses or railway carriages, 
causing my fellow-travellers to look at me in doubt as to 
whether I am a licensed victualler or a necromancer. 
As "bigots feign belief till they believe," I really begin 
to have some doubts myself as to the state of my con- 
victions. 

But I wish to make this paper again a simple state- 
ment of things heard and seen — especially seen. I 
flatter myself the title is a nice, weird, ghostly one, 
calculated to make people feel uncomfortable about 
the small hours of the morning. Should such be the 
case — as they say in prefaces — the utmost hopes of 
the writer will be realized. When last I communi- 
cated my experiences, the ultimate end we had reached 
was the appearance of a white counterpart of pretty 
Miss Blank's face at the peep-hole of a corner cup- 
board. There were a good many more or less — 
generally less — successful imitations of this perform- 
ance in various quarters, and the sensation subsided. 
Miss B. was still facile princeps from the fact that 
she stood full light — I mean her spirit-face did — 
whilst all the others leaned to a more or less dim 
religious kind of gloom. In a short time, however, 
" Katie " — as the familiar of Miss B. was termed — 
thought she would be able to " materialize " herself so 
far as to present the whole form, if we rearranged 
the corner cupboard so as to admit of her doing so. 
Accordingly we opened the door, and from it sus- 
pended a rug or two, opening in the centre, after the 
fashion of a Bedouin Arab's tent, formed a semicircle, 
sat, and sang Longfellow's " Footsteps of Angels." 



278 MYSTIC LONDON. 

Therein occurs the passage : " Then the forms of the 
departed enter at the open door." And, lo and behold, 
though we had left Miss B. tied and sealed to her 
chair, and clad in an ordinary black dress somewhat 
voluminous as to the skirts, a tall female figure, draped 
classically in white, with bare arms and feet, did enter 
at the open door, or rather down the centre from 
between the two rugs, and stood statue-like before 
us, spoke a few words, and retired ; after which we 
entered the Bedouin tent and found pretty Miss B. 
with her dress as before, knots and seals secure, and 
her boots on ! This was Form No. i, the first I had 
ever seen. It looked as material as myself j and on a 
subsequent occasion — for I have seen it several times 
— we took four very good photographic portraits of it 
by magnesium light. The difficulty I still felt, with 
the form as with the faces, was that it seemed so 
thoroughly material and flesh- and-blood like. Perhaps, 
I thought, the authoress of "The Gates Ajar" is right, 
and the next condition of things may be more material 
than we generally think, even to the extent of ad- 
mitting, as she says, pianofortes among its adjuncts. 
But I was to see something much more ghostly than 
this. 

The great fact I notice about spiritualism is, that 
it is obeying the occult impetus of all great move- 
ments, and steadily going from east to west. From 
Hackney and Highbury it gravitates towards Bel- 
gravia and Tyburnia. I left the wilds of Hackney 
behind, and neared Hyde Park for my next Form. I 
must again conceal names and localities; I have no 
desire to advertise mediums, or right to betray persons 
who have shown me hospitality — and Spirit Forms. 



SPIRIT FORMS, 279 

We arranged ourselves in a semicircle around the 
curtains which separated the small back drawing-room 
from the large front one, joined hands, sang until we 
were hoarse as crows, and kept our eyes steadily fixed 
on an aperture left between the curtains for the faces 
to show themselves. The room was in blank dark- 
ness, and, feeling rather tired of the incantation, I 
looked over my shoulder into the gloom, and lo ! a 
shadowy form stood self-illuminated not far from me. 
At last I had seen it — a good orthodox ghost in white, 
and visible in the darkness. It was the form of the 
redoubtable John King himself, who was, I believe, a 
bold buccaneer in the flesh, but who looked more like 
an Arab sheikh in the spirit. He sailed about the 
room, talked to us, and finally disappeared. Eventu- 
ally he reappeared behind the curtains, and for a brief 
space the portiere was drawn aside, and the spirit 
form was seen lighting up the recumbent figure of the 
medium, who was stretched on a sofa, apparently in 
a deep trance. It must be borne in mind that we 
were forming a cordon round the passage from one 
room to the other during the whole of this time. A 
trio of " spirits " generally puts in an appearance at 
these seances. In this case there were John King, 
whom I had now seen, as well as heard ; Katie, the 
familiar of Miss B. ; and a peculiarly lugubrious gen- 
tleman named Peter, who, I fancy, has not been seen, 
but who has several times done me the favor of grasping 
my hand and hoisting me towards the ceiling, as though 
he were going to carry me off bodily to spirit-land. I 
stand some six feet in my boots, and have stepped upon 
my chair, and still felt the hand coming downwards to 
me — where from I have no idea. 



28o MYSTIC LONDON. 

But my later experiences have still to be told. I 
was invited a few weeks ago to a very select seance in- 
deed, where the same medium was to officiate. This 
family, who spared no expense in their investigations, 
had actually got a large, handsome cabinet standing in 
their dining room as a recognized piece of furniture. 
It was only used, however, on this occasion for the im- 
prisonment of the medium. The evolutions of John 
King, who soon appeared, all took place outside the 
cabinet door. He was only " materialized " to the 
middle ; and, to our utter amazement, came up to the 
table, and apparently through the table, into the very 
middle of the circle, where he disported himself in 
various ways, keeping up an animated conversation the 
whole time, and frequently throwing himself into the 
attitude of a person swimming on his back. He also 
went upwards as high as the gasalier, and altogether 
did a good many marvellous things, considering that all 
this time he presented the appearance of only half a 
man illuminated by his own light. 

On one occasion only have I been seated next to the 
medium during the manifestation of any of these forms. 
At this seance I held him firmly by one hand, and a 
slightly skeptical lady had the other. We never let go 
for a moment, but during the whole of the sitting, while 
John King, Katie and Peter were talking, tiny children's 
hands were playing with my arm, hands and hair. 
■ There were, of course, no children in the room. Peter, 
the lugubrious, is great at light porterage. I have 
known him to bring a large collection of valuable 
Sevres china, and a timepiece, with its glass case — no 
easy task in the light, much less in blank darkness. 
He also frequently takes down the pictures from the 
wall and puts them on the table. Katie winds up a 



SPIRIT FORMS. 281 

large musical box, and wafts it, wliile pla3ang, all over 
the room. Of course we rub our eyes and ask what on 
earth, if it be on earth, does this mean ? I have not — to 
keep up the diction of my subject — the ghost oi an idea. 
If it's conjuring, why don't the mediums say so, and 
enter the field openly against Messrs. Maskelyne and 
Cooke and Dr. Lynn ? Even if I had a decided opinion 
about it I should refrain from propounding it here, be- 
cause, in the first place, it would be an impertinence^ 
and, in the second, no conclusion can be arrived at 
upon testimony alone. People must see for themselves 
and draw their own inferences. In the meantime the 
thing, whatever it is, grows and grows upwards. A year 
ago I had to journey down east to find it. Now I must 
array myself gorgeously like a Staffordshire miner, and 
seek the sahms of the west. The great desideratum^ 
it still appears to me, is that some man with a name in 
science should examine the matter, honestly resolving to 
endorse the facts if true, but to expose them merci- 
lessly if there be a loophole for suspicion. Omneigno- 
tum pro magnifico habetur. I used to think ghosts big 
things, but that was before I knew them. I should 
think no more of meeting a ghost now than a donkey 
on a dark night, and would infinitely sooner tackle a 
spirit than a burglar. People's curiosity is roused, and 
the sooner somebody gets at the truth the better. It is 
a somewhat irksome task, it is true ; but no general 
principle can be arrived at, except by an induction of 
particulars. Let us be Baconian, even to our ghosts. 
If they are ghosts, they are a good deal more substantial 
than I had thought. If they are not, let somebody, in 
the name of nineteenth-century science, send them off 
as with the crow of chanticleer, and let us hear no 
more of Spirit Faces or Spirit Forms. 



5-52 MYSTIC LONDON. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

SITTING WITH A SIBYL. 

'^HE connection of modesty with merit is proverbial, 
■^ though questioned by Sidney Smith, who says 
that their only point in common is the fact that each 
begins with an— m. Modesty, however— waiving the 
question of accompanying merit— is a trait which, in my 
mystic inquiries and devious wanderings, I meet with 
far more frequently than might be expected. I have 
just met with two instances, which I hasten to put on 
record, if only to confute those who say that the age in 
general, and spirit mediums in particular, are not prone 
to be modest and retiring. My first modest person 
was a Spirit Photographer ; my second was a Sibyl. I 
might have looked for bashfulness in the latter, but was 
certainly surprised to meet with it in the former. J 
suddenly learnt from the Medium the fact that a Spirit 
Photographer had settled down in my immediate neigh- 
borhood, and the appearance of his ghostly advertise- 
ment brings to my recollection some previous mystic ex- 
periences I myself had in this way. 

A now celebrated medium, Mrs. Guppy, 7iee Miss 
Nicholl, was, in the days of her maidenhood, a prac- 
titioner of photography in Westbourne Grove ; and, as 
far as I know, she might have been the means of open- 
ing up to the denizens of the Summer Land this new 
method of terrestrial operations. Ever on the qui vive 
tor anything new in the occult line, I at once interview- 




SITTING WITH A SIBYL. 283 

ed Miss Nicholl, and sat for my portrait, expecting at 
the least to find the attendant spirit of my departed 
grandmamma or defunct maiden aunt standing sentinel 
over me, as I saw departed relations doing in many 
cartes de visite in the room. 1 confess there was a kind 
of made-up theatrical-property look about the attendant 
spirits which gave one the idea that the superior intelli- 
gences must have dressed in a hurry when they sat or 
stood for their portraits. They looked, in fact, if it be 
not irreverent to say it, rather like so many bundles of 
pneumatical rags than respectable domestic ghosts. 
However, as long as I got the ghosts, I did not care 
about the dress. Temie de soir point de rigueur, I would 
have said, as they do outside the cheap casinos in 
Paris, or " Evening dress not required," if one must 
descend to the vernacular. Well, I sat persistently and 
patiently through I am afraid to say how many opera- 
tions, and the operator described me as being surround- 
ed by spirits — I always am according to Mediums, but 
my spirits must be eminently unsociable ones, for they 
seldom give me a word, and on this occasion refused to 
be " taken " as resolutely as the bashful gentleman in 
the Graphic^ who resisted the operations of the prison 
officials to obtain a sun-picture of his interesting physi- 
ognomy. There was indeed a blotch on one of the 
negatives, which I was assured was a spirit. I could 
not see things in that light. 

Foiled on this particular occasion, my anxiety was 
dormant, but never died out. I still longed for a den- 
izen of the other world to put in an appearance, and kept 
on being photographed over and over again until I 
might have been the vainest man alive, on the bare 
hope that the artist might be a Medium tnalgre. tui, or 



284 MYSTIC LONDON. 

undeveloped. 1 had heard there were such beings, but 
they never came in my way. I was really serious in this 
wish, because I felt if it could be granted, the possibil- 
ity of deception being prevented, the objectivity of the 
phenomena would be guaranteed. At this time I was 
heretical enough to believe that most ghosts were due 
to underdone pork or untimely Welsh rare-bits, and that 
the raps assigned to their agency were assignable to the 
active toes of the Medium which might be anywhere 
and up to anything with the opportunities of a dark 
seance. 

A short time since, however, M. Buguet, a celebrated 
French Spirit Photographer came from Paris to London, 
and received sitters for the modest sum of 30^-. each. 
This would have been much beyond my means j but I 
suppose my wish had transpired, and that gentleman 
sent me an invitation to sit gratis, which, I need not 
say, I thankfully accepted. I felt sure that M. Buguet 
did not know either my long-lost grandmother or lament- 
ed maiden aunt, so that any portraits I might get from 
him would be presumably genuine. I sat ; and over 
my manly form, when the negative came to be cleaned, 
was a female figure in the act of benediction. I have 
no notion how she got there — for I watched every stage 
in the operation, and selected my plate myself; but 
neither, on the other hand, does she bear the faintest 
resemblance to anybody I ever knew. 

Still M. Buguet is not my modest photographer. 
Elated by success so far, I called on the local gentle- 
man who advertised in the Mediiun ; but the local gen- 
tleman was " engaged." I wrote to the local gentle- 
man appointing an interview ; but the local gentleman 
replied not. Yet still his advertisement remains ; and 



SITTING WITH A SIBYL. 285 

I see in every spiritualistic album dozens of "property" 
relations in the shape of quasi-spirits, and wonder why 
the local gentleman would not take me, so as to be im- 
mortalized in these pages. 

Equally modest was the advertising Sibyl. I wrote 
to the Sibyl, and somebody replied, and " respectfully 
declined." But I was not to be done. There is more 
than one Sibyl in the world. I called on No. 2 with- 
out announcing my intention or sending in my name. 
This Sibyl at once admitted me, and I mounted to 
the first floor front of a respectable suburban lodging- 
house. 

I waited anxiously for a long time, wondering wheth' 
er Sibyl was partaking of the onions, whose presence 
in that modest domicile was odoriferously evidenced to 
my nose, though it was then scarcely half-past one 
o'clock. Presently a portly middle-aged man, who might 
have been Sibyl's youthful papa, or rather aged hus- 
band, entered wiping his mouth. He had clearly been 
partaking of the fragrant condiment. 

Where was Sibyl 1 

" She would be with us directly," the gentleman said, 
varying the proceedings by picking his teeth in the in- 
terim. 

She was with us in a minute, and never, I suppose, 
did picturesque anticipations more suddenly collapse 
and come to grief than mine. I had pictured Sibyl a 
bright ethereal being, and the realization of my ideal 
weighed twelve stone, if an ounce. She was a big, 
fleshy, large-boned woman of an utterly uncertain age, 
not without considerable good- nature in her extensive 
features ; but the pervading idea that you had when 
you looked at Sibyl was that there was too much of her. 



286 MYSTIC LONDON. 

I could not help thinking of the husband who said he 
did not like a big wife : he preferred two small ones ; 
and then again I fell into wonderment as to whether 
the man who was still engaged with his dental appara- 
tus was Sibyl's husband or papa. 

I told them I was anxious to test Sibyl's powers j and, 
with a few passes from his fat dumpy hands, the man 
soon put her to sleep. It looked to me like an after- 
dinner nap, but I was told it was magnetic. It might have 
been. By the way, I had unmistakeable evidence from 
my olfactory organ that Sibyl had been eating onions. 

I had provided myself with two locks of hair, as I 
had heard that " psychometry " was among Sibyl's 
qualifications. I handed her the first, and she imme- 
diately proceeded to describe a series of tableaux which 
appeared to pass through her mind. She kept handling 
the lock of hair, and said, " The person to whom this 
belongs is ill — weak," which was true enough, but might, 
I thought, be a shot. I should mention, however, that 
it was quite impossible Sibyl could know me. She had 
not even heard my name. She then described a bed- 
room, with some person— she could not see what per- 
son — lying in bed, and a lady in a blue dress bending 
over her. This, again, I thought might flow out as a 
deduction from her premises of the hair belonging to an 
invalid. The blue dress was correct enough, but still 
so little special as to be a very possible coincidence. 
She then, however, startled me by saying, " I notice 
this, that on the table by the bedside, where the bottles 
of medicine are standing, milk has been spilt — a large 
quantity — and not wiped up." This was a trivial detail, 
not known to me at the time, but confirmed on subse- 
quent inquiry. 



SITTING WITH A SIBYL. 287 

She then passed on to describe a second tableau, 
where the same person in the blue dress was in a room 
all hung ove?' with plates, along with a gentleman whom 
she described very accurately. He was the occupant of 
the house where the patient lay, and, having a hobby 
for old china, had turned his dining-room into a sort of 
crockery shop by hanging it all over with the delf. 

This was curious enough, though not very convincing. 
It seemed as though the influence of this person who 
had given me the hair was stronger than that of the hair 
itself. With the second lock of hair w^e failed utterly. 
She said that also came from a sick person, but a per- 
son not sick with the same disease as the other. She 
was quite positive they came from different people, and 
asked me to feel the difference of texture. I am sorry, 
for Sib34's sake, to say they both came from the same 
person, and were cut at the same time, though from 
different parts of the head, which made one look silkier 
than the other. 

As a test of Sibyl's clairvoyance, this was not very 
satisfactory. She read the inscription on a card when 
her eyes were bandaged, pressing it to her forehead ; 
but then olden experiences in the way of blindman's 
buff convince me that it is very difficult to say when a 
person is properly bhnded. 

Altogether, then, I never quite got over my previous 
disappointment at Sibyl's bulk. Had she been pretty 
and frizzle-headed like Miss Annie Eva Fay, or like 
Miss Showers or Miss Florence Cook, I might have 
been disposed to make more of her coincidences and to 
wink at her failures. We are so liable to be led away 
by our feelings in these matters. Sib}^ was large, had 
eaten onions, and would have been improved if she hac 



288 MYSTIC LONDON. 

brushed her hair, and so I am afraid I rather grudged 
the somewhat exorbitant fee which the fat-handed 
man — not Sib}^ — took and pocketed in an interval of 
his dental pursuit, and I passed out from that suburban 
lodging, none of us, I fancy, very well satisfied with one 
another. I have an idea I unconsciously expressed my 
inner feelings of disappointment with Sibyl and some- 
thing stronger in reference to her male companion. 



«( 



CHAPTER XLV. 

SPIRITUALISrS AND CONJURERS. 

T TOW it's done '' is the question which, in the words 
-^ -^ of Dr. Lynn, we want to settle with reference to 
his own or kindred performances, and, still more, in the 
production of the phenomena known as spiritual. I have 
spent some years of my existence in a hitherto vain 
endeavor to solve the latter problem ; and the farther I 
go, the more the mystery seems to deepen. Of late, the 
two opposed parties, the Spiritualists and the Conjurers, 
have definitely entered the arena, and declared war to 
the knife. Each claims to be Moses, and denounces 
the others as mere magicians. Mr. Maskelyne holds a 
dark seance, professing to expose the spiritualistic ones \ 
Dr. Lynn brandishes against them his strong right arm 
upon which is written in letters all of blood the name 
of one's deceased grandmother, while, in return. Dr. 
Sexton exposes the conjurers, and spoils one's enjoy- 
ment of a hitherto enjoyable evening, by showing " how 



SPIRITUALISTS AND CONJURERS. -289 

it's done " — how the name of one's departed relative is 
forged and painted early in the afternoon, instead of 
" coming out " on the spot — and in spots — like measles or 
nettle-rash (as we feel defunct relations ought to come) or 
walking in and out of the corded box at pleasure, and 
even going so far as to give the address of the clever 
mechanist down a by-street near Notting-hill Gate who 
will make the mysterious packing-case to order in return 
for a somewhat heavy " consideration." 

I accepted Dr. Lynn's invitation to be present on his 
" opening night ; " and wondered, in passing, why every- 
body should not make their cards of invitation such 
thorough works of art as his. Now I am going to do 
even-handed justice all the way round ; and I must say 
that Dr. Lynn's experiment of fastening his attendant 
to a sort of penitential stool with copper wire, surround- 
ed by scrutineers from the audience, and then making 
the man's coat come off, and a ring pass over his arm, 
behind a simple rug held in front of him, is quite as 
wonderful as anything I have ever witnessed at a seance. 
It has the great advantage of being done in the light, 
instead of, "as in Mr. Fay's case, in darkness, and with- 
out a cabinet. In fact, I have no idea how it's done ; 
though I have no doubt the first time I see Dr. Sexton 
he will point to something unsatisfactory in the bolts to 
which that doorkeeper is fastened, and give me the 
addresses of the ironmonger who will sell me some like 
them, or the tailor who will manufacture me a swallow 
tail coat with an imperceptible slit down the back. 
Then again, I have, as I said, seen young Mr. Sexton 
go in and out of the corded box, and I know how that's 
done ; but Dr. Lynn's man goes into three, one inside 
the other. Well, I can understand that if Dr. Sexton's 

19 



290 MYSTIC LONDON. 

theory be correct, it may perhaps be as easy to get into 
a "nest" of three as into one box ; but how, in the name 
of nature — or art — does the nautical gentleman get out 
of the double sack in which he is tied ? I cannot bring 
myself to print what Dr. Sexton's theory of the box is, 
because it appears to be such a wanton cruelty to 
" expose " things when people go to the Egyptian Hall 
on purpose to be mystified. I remember how the fact 
of having seen Dr. Sexton do the trick of reading the 
names in the hat spoilt ray enjoyment of Dr. Lynn's ex- 
periment. He really appeared quite bungling when I 
knew all he was about. He did not, on this occasion, 
produce the letters on his arm ; but I saw he could quite 
easily have done so, though the doing it would have 
been no sort of reproduction of Mr. Foster's manifesta- 
tion, who showed you the name of some relative when 
you have looked on him quite unexpectedly. I can 
quite understand how it is that the spiritualists, who 
hold these matters to be sacred as revelation itself — in 
fact, to be revelation itself, are shocked at seeing their 
convictions denounced as trickery and " exposed " on a 
public platform ; but I confess I do not quite see how 
they can adopt the tu ^uog'ue principle, and " expose " Dr. 
Lynn and Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke as tricksters, 
because they do not pretend to be anything else. It 
would have been fatal if the magicians had " found out " 
Moses, and they wisely refrained from trying ; but it 
would have served no purpose for Mos^to " find out "• 
the magicians : and it strikes me Moses would have 
deemed it very m/ra dig. to make the attempt. The two 
things stand on quite different grounds ; and I cannot 
help thinking that the spiritualists unwisely concede a 
point when they accept the challenge of the conjurers. 



SPIRITUALISTS AND CONJURERS. 291 

I am quite aware that the theory of the spiritualists makes 
of many a conjurer a medium malgre hii, and says he 
ought to come out in his true colors. It was so Messrs. 
Maskelyne and Cooke were originally introduced to a 
London public at the Crystal Palace under the auspices 
of an eminent spiritualist ; but it really appears to me 
that such an assertion amounts to begging the question j 
for I doubt whether it would not " pay ''' quite as well to 
come out boldly in Mr. Williams's or Mr. Moses's line 
as in that of Dr. Lynn or Mr. Maskelyne. 

In a lengthened confab which I once had with Mr. 
Maskelyne himself after one of his performances, he 
told me that by constant attendance at the seances of 
the Davenports he found out how that was all done j 
and, being a working watchmaker, was able soon to get 
the necessary apparatus constructed. I must again be 
just, and state that while the cabinet seance of Messrs. 
Maskelyne and Cooke seems to me the exact counter- 
part of the Davenports', their dark seance fails to repro- 
duce that of the spiritualists as the performances of 
Professor .Pepper himself. True, this latter gentleman 
does all his exposes on a platform which is sacred 
against all intrusion, and Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke 
assume to allow as much examination as the spiritual- 
ists. But I myself, who have seen Mr. Home float 
around Mr. S. C. Hall's drawing-room, and handled 
him above and below in transitu^ quite fail to discern 
any reproduction of that phenomenon in the heavy, 
lumbering levitation of the lady by means of the scis- 
sors-like apparatus behind her, which we are only priv- 
ileged to behold from the stalls. The dancing walking- 
stick is as palpably made terpsichorean by a string as 
the chairs I have seen cross Mr. Hall's drawing-room 



292 ' MYSTIC LONDON. 

in full light were not drawn by strings, for I was able 
to look closely at them ; and I do not know how that 
was done. 

Fresh from Dr. Lynn's really marvellous perform- 
ances of recent times, and with Messrs. Maskelyne and 
Cooke's equally clever tricks in my mind's eye, though 
not quite so recently, I still am bold to say I believe 
there are still six of one to half-a-dozen of the other. If 
the conjurers reproduce the spiritual phenomena in 
some instances, the spiritualists distance the conjurers 
in others. I speak of phenomena only. The magicians 
produced many of the same phenomena as Moses ; but, 
even so, if we are orthodox we must believe the source 
of such manifestations to have been utterly different. 

But I am, as I said, wise in my generation, and stick 
to phenomena. I venture to think the conjurers un- 
wise in irritating the spiritualists, who are a growing 
body, by placarding their entertainment as exposes^ even 
though such announcements may " draw " the non-spir- 
itual public. I suppose, however, they understand the 
science of advertising better than I do ; but I feel sure 
the spiritualists are unwise to follow their example, be- 
cause they have got nothing to expose. Dr. Lynn or 
Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke are as much pleased as 
conscientious mediums would be shocked at being 
proved clever tricksters. The only folks who are in- 
jured by being told " how it's done," are the British 
Public, who pay their five shillings to be mystified at 
the Egyptian Hall, just as the spiritualists do in Lamb's 
Conduit Street. 

If it is to come to a race for the championship — and 
seriously it would seem that, having begun, the two 
parties are bound to continue the strife — one can scarce- 



SPIRITUALISTS AND CONJURERS. 293 

ly imagine anything more attractive than such a com- 
bined display of talent. Dr. Lynn gets lots of people 
to come and see " How it's done " — the gentleman 
with the mandolin is well worth a visit, and I cannot 
guess how he does it — ^while Messrs. Maskelyne and 
Cooke must really be making a good thing of it. Mr. 
Williams' seances are decidedly attractive (and how he 
does it has puzzled me for years, as I said), nor does 
the Progressive Institute seem to decrease in interest; 
but let us only picture the fascination of a long eve- 
ning where Pepper's Ghost should be pitted against 
John King, Mrs. Guppy and Messrs. Maskelyne and 
Cooke's lady float in competition round the room or 
even in from the suburbs, while the Davenports and 
Dr. Lynn's man should wriggle out of or into iron rings 
and their own dress coats ! Until some such contest 
takes place, the public mind will probably gravitate to- 
wards the conjurers rather than the spiritualists, and 
that through the actually suicidal policy of the latter ; 
because while the spiritualists of necessity can show no 
visible source of their manifestations, one of their own 
rank devotes himself to aiding the conjurers by show- 
ing in reference to their tricks, " How it's done." It 
would have been wiser, surely, to stand upon dignity, 
and in a truly conservative spirit (is it too late even 
now to re-assume it ?) say, " These men are mediums, 
but it does not suit their pockets to confess it." 

Well, they are signs of the times. London loves to 
be mystified, and would only have one instead of mani- 
fold methods to be so if the spiritualists and conjurers 
were to strike hands, and reduce us all to the dead 
level of pure faith or relentless reason and cold com- 
mon sense ! 



294 MYSTIC LONDON. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 

TT has been repeatedly urged upon me on previous 
occasions, and also during the progress of these 
sheets through the press, that I should make a clean 
breast of my own belief or disbelief in spiritualism ; 
that besides being descriptive, I should go one step be- 
yond a mere catalogue of phenomena, and, to some ex- 
tent at least, theorize on this mysterious and generally 
proscribed subject. 

Let me say at the outset that against the proscrip- 
tion of this, or indeed any topic which does not offend 
against morals, 1 would at the very outset protest as 
the height of unwisdom. Thus to taboo a subject is at 
once to lend it a factitious interest, and more than half 
to endorse its truth : and I believe modern spiritualism 
has been very generally treated in this way. Whether 
truth has gained by such indiscriminate condemnation 
and prejudgment is, I think, greatly open to question. 

For myself, I have, from the first, steadily refused to 
look upon spiritualism in this bugbear fashion. The 
thing was either true or false — or, more probably still, 
partly true and partly false : and I must bring to bear 
on the discovery of its truth or falsehood, just the same 
critical faculties that I should employ on any other 
problem of common life. That, I fancy, is no trans- 
cendental view of the matter ; but just the plain com- 
mon sense way of going to work. It was, at all events, 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 295 

right or wrong, the method I adopted to get at such re- 
sults as I proceed to make public. I declined to be 
scared from the study either by Bogey or my esteemed 
friend Mrs. Grundy, but went at it just in the calm 
Baconian inductive method in which I should have 
commenced any other study or pursuit. 

What I want to do is to tabulate these results in the 
same order as that in which they occurred to me ; and 
here I am met by a preliminary difficulty, not incidental 
to this subject only, but common to any narrative where 
we have to take a retrospective glance over a number 
of years. We are apt to view the subject from our pres- 
ent standpoint ; and I shall try to avoid this by quot- 
ing, whenever I can, what I published, or committed to 
writing, in the course of my investigations. I shall not 
cull from others, because I want to make this purely a 
personal narrative. 

Let me add, too, I do not in the least expect persons 
to believe what I say. Some, I think, will regard me as 
a harmless ({/"a harmless) lunatic, on account of certain 
statements I rnay have to make. Others will consider 
the whole thing as decidedly unorthodox and " wrong." 
For each of these issues I am prepared. I would not 
have believed any one else if they had, prior to my ex- 
perience, told me what I am going to tell them here ; 
and therefore I do not expect them to believe me. All 
T hope to do is to interest persons sufficiently in the 
subject to induce them to look into the matter on their 
own account ; for verily I believe, as a distinguished 
spiritualist once said to me, that this thing is either an 
important truth or else one of the biggest swindles ever 
palmed off upon humanity. 

One word more, and I proceed to my narrative. Of 



296 MYSTIC LONDON. 

the three aspects under which it is possible to view 
spiritualism — the scientific, the theological, and the 
social — I shall not touch at all on the first, since I am 
not a scientific man ; shall only glance at the second, 
because this is not the place for a theological dis- 
cussion. I shall confine myself to the third, therefore, 
which I call the social aspect \ looking at the subject 
as a question of the day, the truth about which we are 
as much interested in solving as any other political or 
social question, but the investigation of which need not 
make us get excited and angry and call one another 
bad names. I venture to hope that by these means I 
may manage to compile a not unedifying or uninterest- 
ing narrative, though our subject be withal somewhat a 
ponderous one. 

In order, then, to cover the preliminary part of my 
narrative, and to let my readers somewhat into the state of 
my own mind, when I had looked at the subject for seve- 
ral years, I will quote some extracts from a paper I read 
before a society of spiritualists at the Beethoven Rooms 
a few years ago under the title " Am I a Spiritualist ? " 
I may mention that the assembly was divided, and 
never decided whether I was or not, and what is more, 
I do not think they are quite decided to the present 
day. I am a patient investigator still j but I really do 
not feel it necessary to issue perpetual bulletins as to 
the state of my convictions. 

Taking as my thesis, then, the question. Am I a Spir- 
itualist ? it will certainly appear, at first sight, I said, 
that the person best qualified to answer this question is 
precisely the person who puts it ; but a little considera- 
tion will, I think, show that the term " Spiritualist " is 
one of such wide and somewhat elastic meanins: — in 



PI-:OS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 297 

fact, that the word varies so widely according to the 
persons who use it — that the question may really be 
asked of one's self without involving an inconsistency. 

When persons ask me, as they often do, with a look 
of unmitigated horror, " Is it possible that you, a 
clergyman, are a spiritualist? " I am often inclined to 
answer, " Yes, madam," — (for it is generally a lady who 
puts the question in that particular shajDc) — " I am a 
spiritualist, and precisely because I am a clergyman. I 
have had to express more than once my unfeigned as- 
sent and consent to the Common Prayer Book, and the 
Thirty-Nine Articles ; and that involves belief in the 
inspiration of all the Bible (except the Apocrypha), and 
the whole of that {fiot excepting the Apocrypha) is spir- 
itual, or spiritualistic (if you prefer the term) from be- 
ginning to end ; and therefore it is not in spite of my 
being a clergyman, but because I am a clergyman that I 
am such a confirmed spiritualist." 

I could answer thus, only I do not, simply because to 
do so would be dishonest. I know my questioner is 
using the word in an utterly different sense from what 
I have thought proper to suppose. Besides such an an- 
swer would only lead to argumentation, and the very 
form of the question shows me the person who puts it 
has made up her mind on this, as probably on most 
other subjects ; and when a feminine mind is once 
made up (others than ladies have feminine minds on 
these subjects) it is very little use trying to alter it. I 
never do. I administer some orthodox verbal sedative, 
and change the subject. But even accepting the term 
in the way I know it is meant to be used — say, for in- 
stance, as it comes from the mouth of some conserva- 
tive old gentleman, or supposed scientific authority — 



^98 MYSTIC LONDON. 

one's medical man to wit — " Do you believe in spirit- 
ualism ? " meaning " Are you such an ass as to believe 
in table-turning, and rapping, and all that kind of non- 
sense ? " — even so, the question would admit of being 
answered by another question j though I rarely enter 
so far on the matter with those whose minds are evi- 
dently quite comfortably made up on the matter. It is 
such a pity to interfere with cherished opinions. I 
have found out that there are Athanasian creeds in 
science as well as in theology ; and really, whilst they 
form recognized formulae in the one or the other, it 
is positively lost labor to go running one's head against 
them. The question I want to ask — not the gentle 
apothecaries, but my readers — is, What do you mean 
by believing in spiritualism ? Many of the phenomena 
of spiritualism I cannot but believe, if I am to take my 
five senses as my guides in this as in other matters, 
and quite setting aside any credence I may give to re- 
spectable testimony. When, however, I pass from facts 
to theories, and am asked to account for those facts, 
then I hesitate. There are some here, I know, who 
will say that the spiritualist, like the lady who hesitates, 
is lost — who think me as heterodox for doing so, as the 
inflexible old ladies and the omniscient apothecaries 
did on account of my even deigning to look into the 
evidence of such phenomena. I feel really that I have 
set myself up like an animated ninepin to be knocked 
down by the first thorough-going spiritualist who cares 
to bowl at me. But whatever else they think of me — 
skeptical though they deem me on subjects where per- 
haps you are, many of you, a little prone to dogmatize 
— I claim the character at least of an honest skeptic. I 
do not altogether disavow the title, but I understand it 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 



299 



to mean " inquirer." I confess myself, after long years 
of perfectly unbiassed inquiry, still an investigator — a 
skeptic. It is the fashion to abuse St. Thomas because 
he sought sensible proofs on a subject which it was 
certainly most important to have satisfactorily cleared 
up. I never could read the words addressed to him at 
all in the light of a rebuke — " Because thou hast seen 
thou hast believed." The Church of England treats 
the doubt of St. Thomas as permitted by God " for the 
more confirm.ation of the faith ; " and I feel sure that 
professed spiritualists will not be so inconsistent as to 
censure any man for examining long and carefully mat- 
ters which they believe to admit of demonstration. I 
heard the most eloquent of their advocates say, when 
comparing spiritual with credal conviction, " Our motto 
no longer is ' I believe,' but * I know.' " Belief may be 
instantaneous, but knowledge will be gradual ; and so 
it is that, standing at a certain fixed point in very many 
years' study of spiritualism, I pause, and — so to say, 
empanelling a jury — ask the question it seems I ought 
to answer at others' asking — Am I a Spiritualist ? 

One word of apology further before entering on the 
details of the matter. It will be inevitable that the first 
personal pronoun shall recur frequently in the course of 
this paper, and that so the paper shall seem egotistical. 
The very question itself sounds so. I am not vain 
enough to suppose that it matters much to anybody here 
whether I am a spiritualist or not, except in so far as I 
may be in any sense a representative man. I believe I 
am. That is, I believe, nay, am sure, that a great many 
persons go as far as I do, and stop where I stop. There 
is a largish body of investigators, I believe, dangling 
there, like Mahomet's coffin, between heaven and earth, 



300 MYSTIC LONDON. 

and it would be a charity to land them somewhere. Oi 
the clerical mind, I do not claim to be a representative, 
because the clerical mind, qua clerical, has made up 
itself that the phenomena in question are diabolical. 
Of course if I accepted this theory my question would 
be utterly irrelevant, and I should claim a place among 
the spiritualists at once. The diabolical people not 
only accept the phenomena, but admit their spiritual 
origin, and more than this, identify the spirits. They 
are in point of fact the most thorough-going spiritualists 
of all. 

In sketching their creed, I have mentioned the three 
stages through which most minds must go in this matter. 
Some few, indeed, take them by intuition, but most 
minds have to plod patiently along the path of inquiry, 
as I have done. The first stage is acceptance of the 
phenomena, the second the assignment of those phe- 
nomena to spirits as their source, the-third is identifica- 
tion of these spirits. 

I. On the first part of my subject I shall venture to 
speak with some boldness. I am not a philosopher, 
therefore I can afford to do so. I shall suppose my 
five senses to serve my purposes of observation, as they 
would be supposed to serve me if I were giving evidence 
in a court of justice. If I saw a table move, I shall 
say it did move, not " it appeared to move." I do this 
in my capacity of a commonplace instead of a philo- 
sophical investigator ; and I must say, if I were, as I 
supposed myself just now, in the witness-box, with a 
good browbeating counsel cross-examining me on this 
point, I would rather have to defend the position of the 
commonplace inquirer than the philosopher, pledged to 
^efend the philosophy of the last fifty years, and bound 



• PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 301 

hand and foot by his philosophic Athanasian Creed, 
and I don't know how many articles, more than thirty- 
nine, I fancy. 

In the latter part of the year 1856, or beginning of 
1857, then, I was residing in Paris, that lively capital 
being full of Mr. Home's doings at the Tuileries. At 
that time I knew nothing, even of table-turning. I lis- 
tened to the stories of Mr. Home and the Emperor as 
mere canards. I never stopped to question whether 
the matter were true, because I in my omniscience knew 
it to be impossible. It is this phase of my experience 
that makes me so unwilling to argue with the omnis- 
cient people now ; it is such a waste of time. At this 
period my brother came to visit me, and he had either 
been present himself or knew persons who had been 
present at certain seances at Mr. Rymer's. He seemed 
staggered, if not convinced, by what he had heard or 
seen, and this staggered me too, for he was not exactly 
a gullible person and certainly by no means " spiritual." 
I was staggered, I own, but then I was omniscient, and 
so I did -what is always safest, laughed at the matter. 
He suggested that we should try experiments instead of 
laughing, and, not being a philosopher, I consented. 
We sat at the little round table in our tiny salon, which 
soon began to turn, then answered questions, and finally 
told us that one of the three, viz., my wife, was a medi- 
um, and consequently we could receive communications. 
I went to a side table and wrote a question as to the 
source of the manifestations, keeping it concealed from 
those at the table, and not rejoining them myself. The 
answer spelt out by them was — " We, the spirits of the 
departed, are permitted thus to appear to men." Again 
I wrote — " What object is served by your doing so 1 " 



302 MYSTIC LONDON. ^ 

The answer was — " It may make men believe in God.'* 
I have said I am not a philosopher, therefore I do not 
mind confessing that I collapsed. I struck my flag at 
once as to the impossibility of the matter. At the same 
time I did not — as I know many ardent spiritualists will 
think I ought — at once swallow the whole thing, theory 
and all. I should not have believed if a man had told 
me this ; was it to be expected that I should believe a 
table ? Honesty is my best policy ; and I had better, 
therefore, say I was never so utterly knocked over by 
anything that occurred to me in my life before or since. 
My visage of utter, blank astonishment is a joke against 
me to this hour. We pursued the inquiry almost nightly 
during the remainder of my stay in Paris — up to late in 
the summer of 1857 that is — and also on our return to 
England ; but strangely as it seems to me now, consid- 
ering how we began, we did it more as a pastime than 
anything else. The only time we were serious was when 
my wife and I sat alone, as we often did. Of course 
when I came to inquire at all into the matter I was 
met by Faraday's theory of involuntary muscular action, 
and also with the doctrine of unconscious cerebration — 
I was quite ready to accept either. My own position, as 
far as I can recall it, then was that the spiritual agency was 
" not proven." My wife had great reluctance against 
admitting the spiritual theory. I was simply passive ; 
but two circumstances seemed to me to militate against 
the theories I have mentioned : (i) The table we used 
for communicating was a little gimcrack French affair, 
the top of which spun round on the slightest provoca- 
tion, and no force whatever, not even a philosopher's, 
applied to the surface would do more than spin the top 
round ; but when the table turned, it turned bodily., legs 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIR17UALISM. 303 

and all. (2) As to that ponderous difficult theory of 
unconscious cerebration communicated by invokmtary 
muscular action, whenever we ask any questions as to 
the future, we were instantly checked, and told it was 
better that the future should not be revealed to us. I 
was anxious about a matter in connection with an elec- 
tion to an appointment in England, and we asked some 
questions as to what form the proceedings would take. 
The reply vs^as that certain candidates would be selected 
from the main body, and the election made from these. 
I thought I had caught the table in an inconsistency, 
and said — " There now you have told us something 
about the future." It immediately replied — -" No, I 
have not ; the matter is already settled in the minds of 
the examiners." Whence came that answer ? Certainly 
not from our minds, for it took us both by surprise. I 
could multiply a hundredfold instances of this kind, 
but, of course, to educated spiritualists these are mere A 
B C matters ; whilst non-spiritualists would only accept 
them on the evidence of their own senses. I do not 
mean to say they actually question the facts to the ex- 
tent of doubting one's veracity, or else nearly all testi- 
mony must go for nothing ; but there is in these matters 
always room for doubting whether the narrator has not 
been deceived ; and, moreover, even if accepted at sec- 
ond-hand, I doubt whether facts so accepted ever be- 
come, as it were, assimilated, so as to have any practical 
effect. 

My facts at all events came at first-hand. I suppose 
a man need not be considered credulous for believing 
in his own wife, and nearly all these phenomena were 
produced by my wife's mediumship. It was not until 
late in the year 1865 or early in 1866, that I ever sat 



304 MYSTIC LONDON. 

with a professional medium. My wife, moreover, from 
first to last, has steadily disbelieved the spirit theory, so 
that she has not laid herself open to suspicion of being 
prejudiced in favor of the subject. She has been 
emphatically an involuntary, nay, even unwilling agent 
in these matters. 

During these eight or nine years the communications 
were generally given by automatic writing, though some- 
times still by tilting of the table. I am very much tempted 
to quote two, which linger in my recollection, principally, 
I believe, because they were so destructive of the 
cerebration theory, besides being curious in themselves. 
I kept no record until a later date. At present all rests 
on tradition. Each of these cases occurred in presence 
of myself, my wife, and a pupil. In the former, he was 
a young Englishman, who had lived a great deal abroad, 
whose mother was a Catholic and father a Protestant. 
He had been brought up in the latter faith ; and when 
I desired him to ask a mental question, he asked, in 
French — that being the language most familiar to him — 
" Is the Catholic or the Protestant religion the true 
one ? " Mark you, he never articulated this, or gave the 
least hint that he was asking in French. He did it 
in fact, spontaneously. My wife immediately wrote, 
" Ta mere est Catholique " so far, in French, with diffi- 
culty, and then breaking off into English, " Respect her 
faith." 

In the second instance, my pupil was a French youth, 
a Catholic, who was living in my house, but used to go 
to his priest frequently to be prepared for his first com- 
munion. One day when we were writing, this youth 
asked who the communicating spirit was, and received in 
reply the name of Louis D . The name was totally 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 305 

unknown to us ; but to our surprise when the youth came 
back from his visit to the priest that day he informed us 
that his reverend instructor had dwelt strongly on 

the virtues of Louis D . Seeing the boy look 

amazed as the name which had just been given at our 
seance was pronounced, the priest inquired the reason j 
and, on being informed, of course directed his catechu- 
men never to join in such diablerie again. 

The impression, then, left on my mind by these years 
of desultory dabbling with — rather than study of — the 
subject, was decidedly that the phenomena of spiritualism 
was genuine. Looking at the matter from my present 
standpoint and frame of mind, it seems to me incredible 
that I should have thought so little of the source of the 
phenomena. It was, as I said, that I was then dabbling 
with, not studying the subject. 

But even without advancing beyond this rudimentary 
stage, I saw a very serious result produced. I saw men 
who literally believed in nothing; and who entered on 
this pursuit in a spirit of levity, suddenly staggered with 
v^dlat appeared to afford even possibility of demonstra- 
tion of another world, and the continued existence of the 
spirit after bodily death. I believe a great many persons 
who have never felt doubt themselves are unaware of the 
extent to which doubt prevails amongst young men 
especially ; and I have seen many instances of this doubt 
being — if not removed — shaken to its very foundation by 
their witnessing the phenomena of spiritualism. " Yes, 
but did it make good consistent Christians of them ? " 
asks one of my excellent simple-minded objectors. Alas ! 
my experience does not tell me that good consistent 
Christians are so readily made. Does our faith — I 
might have asked — make us the good consistent Chris- 



3o6 MYSTIC LONDON. 

tians it ought to do, and would do perhaps, if we gave 
it fair play ? 

So, then, my study of spiritualism had been, purely 
phenomenal. It was a very sad and serious event which 
drove me to look deeper. Some people will, I daresay, 
think it strange that I allude to this cause here. The fact 
that I do so shows, at all events, that I have looked 
seriously at spiritualism since. It was none other than 
the loss, under painful circumstances, of one of my 
children. Now I had always determined that, in the 
event of my losing one near and dear to me, I would put 
spiritualism to the test, by trying to communicate with 
that one. This will, I think, show that, even then, if I 
did not accept the spiritualistic theory, I did not by any 
means consider the position untenable. The very day 
after my boy's death, I got his mother to sit, and found 
she was writing a little loving message purporting to 
come from him. This, a skeptic would say, was natural 
enough under the circumstances. I said no word, but 
sat apart, and kept writing " Who is it that communi- 
cates .'' write your name." Suddenly the sentence was 
broken off, and the child's name written, though I had 
not expressed my wish aloud. This was strange ; but 
what followed was stranger still. Of course, so far all 
might have been fairly attributed to cerebration — if such 
a process exists. It was natural enough, it might be 
urged, that the mother, previously schooled in the belief 
of the probability of communication, should write in her 
lost child's name. For years the same thing never 
occurred again ^ though we sat night after night for the 
purpose of renewing such communications. I can cer- 
tainly say of myself that, at this time, I was a spiritualist 
— as thorough and devout a one as any existing ; and 



PROS A.YD CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 



307 



the fact that I was so, when carried away by my feelings, 
makes me the more cautious to test and try myself as to 
whether my feelings may not sometimes sway my judg- 
ment even now ; whether the wish be not often father of 
the thought, at all events in the identification of spiritual 
communications, and so, possibly of the spiritual nature 
of such communications altogether. 

However, from this time — the autumn of 1865 — my 
spiritual studies underwent an entire change — they were 
studies — serious studies. I now kept a careful journal 
of all communications, which journal I continued for 
three years, so that I can trace all my fluctuations of 
opinion — ^for I did fluctuate — during that period. Now, 
too, it was necessary for me to consult those who had 
already gone deeply into the subject; and the record of 
my experiences would be both imperfect and ungracious 
if I did not here acknowledge the prompt kindness of the 
two gentlemen to whom I applied — Mr. Benjamin Cole- 
man and Mr. Samuel Carter Hall. I was comparatively 
a stranger to each of them, but they replied to my in- 
quiries with the most ready courtesy, and I am happy to 
date my present friendship with each of them from this 
time. At Mr. Hall's I met Mr. Home, and on the second 
occasion of my doing so, not only saw him float, but 
handled him above and below during the whole of the 
time he floated round Mr. Hall's drawing-room. I am 
unphilosophical enough to say that I entirely credit the 
evidence of my senses on that occasion, and am as cer- 
tain that Mr. Home was in space for five minutes as I 
am of my own existence. The ordinary solution of 
cranes and other cumbrous machinery in Mr. Hall's 
drawing-room I cannot credit, for I think we should have 
seen them, and I am sure I should have felt ropes round 



3o8 MYSTIC LONDON. 

Mr. Home's body. Chairs went from one end of the 
room to the other i?i full light ; and nobody had pre- 
viously tumbled over strings and wires, so that I don't 
think there could have been any there. 

I. fancy, as far as any order is traceable in the some- 
what erratic course of spiritualistic experiences, that most 
people arrive at spiritualism via mesmerism. It so hap- 
pened that this order was exactly inverted in my case. 
It was not until 1866 that I found I possessed the power 
of magnetism, and moreover, had in my house a subject 
whom Alphonse Didier (with whom I afterwards put 
myself in communication) declared to be " one in a thou- 
sand." Some of the details of this lady's case are very 
curious, but this is scarcely the place to dilate upon them 
further than as they affected my spiritualistic studies. 
She passed with extraordinary ease into the condition 
of lucidity, when she was conscious only of basking in 
light, anxious to be magnetized more deeply so as to 
get more thoroughly into the light, and, moreover, aware 
only of the existence of those who had passed away 
from earth. She knew they were with her : said I must 
know it, as I was there too, and that it was I only who 
would not " let her " see them. The fact that " our life 
is twofold " was to me most marvellously brought out 
by my magnetic treatment of this lady ; and, moreover, 
the power of influencing action could not fail to be sug- 
gestive of the truth of one of the cardinal doctrines of 
spiritualism — that we are thus influenced by disembod- 
ied spirits, as I, an embodied spirit, could influence 
another spirit in the body. Some of the likes and dis- 
likes which I, so to say, produced then in 1866 have 
remained to the present hour. For instance, one par- 
ticular article of food ( I will not mention what, or it 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 309 

would be fatal to my reader's gravity), for which she 
previously had a penchant, I rendered so distasteful to 
her that the very smell of it now makes her uncomfort- 
able. I must plead guilty to having experimented some- 
what in this way ; but what a wonderful light it sheds 
upon the great problem of the motives of human action ! 
By the simple exercise of my will I could make my 
patient perform actions the most abhorrent to her. For 
instance — the ladies will appreciate this power — at a 
time when crinolines were extensive, I made that poor 
creature draggle about in a costume conspicuous by the 
absence of crinoline, and making her look like some of 
the ladies out of Noah's ark. 

During this period my wife and I constantly sat alone, 
and she wrote. It is no disrespect to her to say that 
writing is not her forte, but the communications she 
made in this way were exceedingly voluminous, and 
couched in a particularly happy style, though on subjects 
far above the range of ordinary compositions. We 
never obtained a single communication purporting to 
come from our child, but the position claimed by the 
communicating intelligence was that of his spirit-guar- 
dian. 

Having now probably said enough in these confes- 
sions to convince every non-spiritualist that I am insane, 
because I believed the evidence of my senses, and even 
ventured to look into m.atters so unorthodox and unsci- 
entific as mesmerism and spiritualism, I go on to "make 
a clean breast," and set myself wrong with the other 
moiety of my readers. I must candidly confess that the 
experiences of this year (1866) did not confirm my sud- 
den conviction of the spiritual agency in these phenom- 
ena. I drifted back, in fact, to my previous position, 



3IO 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



accepting the phenomena, but holding the cause an open 
question. The preface to the book, " From Matter to 
Spirit," exactly expressed— shall I say expresses ? — my 
state of mind. There is one passage in that preface 
which appears to me to clinch the difficulty — " I am 
perfectly convinced that I have both seen and heard, in 
a manner which should make unbelief impossible, things 
called spiritual, which cannot be taken by a reasonable 
being to be capable of explanation by imposture, coin- 
cidence, or mistake. So far I feel the ground firm under 
me. But when it comes to what is the cause of these 
phenomena I find I cannot adopt any explanation which 
has yet been suggested. If I were bound to choose 
among things which I can conceive, I should say that 
there is some sort of action — some sort of combination 
of will, intellect, and physical power, which is not that 
of any of the human beings present. But thinking it 
very likely that the universe may contain a few agencies, 
say half a million, gbout which no man knows anything, 
I cannot but suspect that a small proportion of these 
agencies, say five thousand, may be severally competent 
to the production of all the phenomena, or may be quite 
up to the task among them. The physical explanations 
which I have seen are easy, but miserably insufficient: the 
spiritual hypothesis is sufficient but ponderously difficult ^ 
This statement is natural enough from the scientific side 
of the question. Perhaps the theological inquirer, tak- 
ing the fact into consideration that Scripture certainly 
concedes the spiritual origin of kindred phenomena, 
would rather reverse the statement, and say (what I 
individually feel) that the psychological explanation is 
the ponderously difficult — the pneumatological, the com- 
paratively easy one. 



PROS AND COiVS OF SPIRITUALISM. 3 j 1 

It is now no secret that the author of this excellent 
treatise is Professor De Morgan ; and I can only say 
that if I am accused of heterodoxy, either from the 
spiritualist or anti-spiritualist side of the discussion, I 
am not ashamed to be a heretic in such company. Let 
me put the matter in the present tense, indicative mood 
■ — that is the state of my opinion on the cause of the 
phenomena. Admitting the facts, I hold the spiritual 
theory to be " not proven," but still to be a hypothesis 
deserving our most serious consideration, not only as 
being the only one that will cover all the facts, but as 
the one I believe invariably given in explanation by the 
intelligence that produces the phenomena, even when, 
as in our case, all those present are skeptical of or op- 
posed to such a theory. 

3. It may perhaps sound illogical if, after stating 
that I hold the spiritual origin of these phenomena un- 
proven, I go on to speak of the identification of the 
communicating spirit ; but I hope I have made it clear 
that, even if I do not consider the spiritualistic explan- 
ation demonstrated, it is still a hypothesis which has 
much in its favor. 

I have already mentioned the subject of identifica- 
tion in the case of the first communication purporting 
to come from our little child, and how no such com- 
munications were received for a period of some years 
after. In December, 1866, I went to the Marshalls', 
entering as an entire stranger, and sitting down at the 
table. I saw some strong physical manifestations — a 
large table being poised in space, in full light, for some 
seconds. It was signified there was a spirit present 
who wished to communicate, and the message given by 
raps to me was — " Will you try to think of us more 



3 1 2 ^^y-S riC L ONDON. 

than you have done ? " I asked the name, and my 
child's was correctly given, though I had not been an- 
nounced, and I have no reason to believe my name was 
known. The place where he passed away from earth 
was also correctly specified. I then asked for my 
father, and his name was correctly given, and a mes- 
sage added, which I cannot say was equally suggestive 
of individuality. It was — " Bright inspiration will dawn 
upon your soul, and do not hide your light under a 
bushel." 

Another case in which I tested individuality strongly, 
with utter absence of success, was also brought before 
me somewhat earlier in this year. I was sent for by a 
lady who had been a member of my congregation, and 
who had taken great interest in these questions. She 
was suddenly smitten down with mortal disease, and I 
remained with her almost to the last — indeed, I believe 
her last words were addressed to me, and referred to 
this very subject of identification — she consulting me as 
to the great problem she was then on the very point of 
solving ! As soon as she had gone from us, I went 
home, and tried to communicate with her. I was in- 
formed that her spirit was present, and yet every detail 
as to names, &c., was utterly wrong. 

In the spring of the following year I went again to 
the Marshalls', in company with one or two other per- 
sons, my own object being to see if I could obtain com- 
munication from the spirit of a highly-gifted lady who 
had recently died — and also, I may mention — had been 
the medium of my previous slight acquaintance with 
Mr. Coleman. She was very much interested in these 
matters, and, when in this world, her great forte had 
been writing. She published a volume of poems, which 



PI^OS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 



Z'^Z 



won the special commendation of the late Charles 
Dickens, and her letters were most characteristic ones. 
I mentioned that I wished to communicate with the 
spirit 1 was thinking of, and said I should be quite sat- 
isfied if the initials were correctly given. Not so — the 
whole three names were immediately given in full. I 
do not feel at liberty to mention the names ; but the 
surname was one that nine out of ten people always 
spelt wrongly (just as they do ?7iy name), but on this 
occasion it was correctly spelt. I asked for a charac- 
teristic message, and received the words, " I am saved, 
and will now save others ; " — about as unlike my 
friend's ordinary style as possible. It may be said her 
nature had undergone revolution, but that was not the 
question. The test was that something should be given, 
identifying the spirit, by the style of its former writing 
while embodied on earth. 

With one more case, bearing on this subject of iden- 
tity, and bringing the matter up to the present date, I 
feel I may advantageously close this portion of my ex- 
periences-r-though as I do so, I am thoroughly dissatis- 
fied with myself to find how much I have left unsaid. 
It is so difficult to put these things on paper, or in any 
way to convey them to another ; — most difficult of all 
for one unblessed with leisure, and combining in his 
single self the pursuits of some three laborious call- 
ings. 

Last year, whilst sitting at Mrs. B 's, I was 

touched by a hand which seemed to me that of a small 
girl, and which attracted my attention by the way it 
lingered in mine — this would amuse Professor Pepper 
— and the pertinacity with which it took off my ring. 
However, I never took any steps to identify the owner 
of the hand. 



314 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



Some few months ago, my wife and I were sitting, 
and a communication came ostensibly from our child. 
It was quite unexpected ; and I said^ " I thought you 
could not communicate." " I could not before," was 
the reply. " But you have not tried me for two years." 
This we found was true ; but we actually had to look 
into dates to ascertain it. He added, that he always 
was present at seances where I went, and especially at 

Mrs. B 's. It will, I daresay, sound strange to 

non-spiritualists, but the initiated can understand the 
conversational tone we adopt. I said, " But, Johnny, 
that was not your hand that touched me at Mrs. 

B 's. It was too large." The answer was, " No ! 

it was Charlie's turn." I said, " What do you mean by 
Charlie's turn ? " The word was rewritten with almost 
petulant haste and remarkable plainness, " Charlie's 
twin.'' Charlie is my eldest boy, and his twin-brother 
was still-born. He would be between thirteen and 
fourteen years of age, and that was precisely the sized 
hand I felt. This was curious ; as the event had oc- 
curred a year before, and such an explanation had 
never even crossed my mind. I was promised that, if 

I would go to Mrs. B 's again, each of the children 

would come and place a hand in mine. I went to the 
ordinary seance some time before Christmas, and was 
then told that the test I wished — which I had not then 
specified — should be given to me at a private seance. 
We had the private seance, but nothing occurred. 

Such is my case. To one section of my readers I 
shall appear credulous, to another hard of belief. I be- 
lieve that I represent the candid inquirer. As for be- 
ing scared off from the inquiry by those who call it un- 
orthodox, or cry out " fire and brimstone," I should as 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 



315 



little think of heeding them as the omniscient apoth- 
ecaries w'lio smile at my believing in mesmerism. If a 
man's opinions are worth anything — if he has fought 
his way • to those opinions at the bayonet's point — he 
will not be scared off from them by the whole bench of 
Bishops on the one side, or the College of Surgeons on 
the other. Not that I for one moment plead guilty to 
heterodoxy, either scientific or theological. I am not, 
as I have said several times, a philosopher, but I be- 
lieve it is scientific to hold as established what you can 
prove by experiment. I don't think my creed contains 
a jot or tittle beyond this. And as for theological or- 
thodoxy, I simply take my stand upon the Canons of 
the Church of England. If all this spiritual business is 
delusion, how comes it that No. 72 of the Constitutions 
and Canons Ecclesiastical says : " Neither shall any 
minister, not licensed, attempt, upon any pretence 
whatever, either of possession or obsession, by fasting 
or prayer, to cast out any devil or devils t " 

The question, however, is not of this kind of ortho- 
doxy. It- rather refers to the creed of spiritualism. The 
question, in fact, to which I and the many who think 
with me pause for a reply, is : — allowing, as we do, some 
of the phenomena — but considering the pneumatological 
explanation hypothetical only — and therefore any identi- 
fication of communicating intelligence impossible — are 
we (for I am sincerely tired of that first person singular, 
and glad to take refuge in a community), are we, or are 
we not, spiritualists ? 

So far was I able to commit myself in my address 
to the spiritualists of Harley Street. I was, I confess, 
greatly pleased when, in 1869, the Dialectical Society 
took up this matter, because I felt they were just the 



3 1 6 MYSTIC L ONDON. 

people to look into it dispassionately. They were bound 
to no set of opinions, but regarded everything as an 
open question, accepting nothing save as the conclusion 
of a logical argument. I joined the Society — straining 
ray clerical conscience somewhattodo so — and eventually 
formed one of the committee appointed by the Society 
to inquire into the matter, and having a sub-committee 
sitting at my own house. This, however, broke up sud- 
denly, for I found even philosophers were not calm in 
their examination of unpalatable facts. One gentleman 
who approached the subject with his mind fully made 
up, accused the lady medium of playing tricks, and me 
of acting showman on the occasion. As there was no 
method of shunting this person, I was obliged to break 
up my sub-committee. To mention spiritualism to these 
omniscient gentlemen is like shaking a red rag at a bull. 
As a case in .point (though, of course, I do not credit 
these gentlemen with the assumption of omniscience), I 
may quote the replies of Professor Huxley and Mr. G. 
H. Lewes to the Society's invitation to sit on their 
committee : — 

" Sir, — I regret thati am unable to accept the invitation 
of the Council of the Dialectical Society to co-operate 
with a committee for the investigation of ' spiritualism ; ' 
and for two reasons. In the first place, I have no time 
for such an inquiry, which would involve much trouble 
and (unless it were unlike all inquiries of that kind I 
have known) much annoyance. In the second place, I 
take no interest in the subject. The only case of spirit- 
ualism ' I have had the opportunity of examining into 
for myself, was as gross an imposture as ever came under 
my notice. But supposing the phenomena to be genuine 
— they do not interest me. If anybody would endow 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 



317 



me with the faculty of listening to the chatter of old 
women and curates in the nearest cathedral town, I 
should decline the privilege, having better things to 
do. 

" And if the folk in the spiritual world do not talk 
more wisely and sensibly than their friends report them 
to do, I put them in the same category. 

*' The only good that I can see in a demonstration of 
the truth of * spiritualism ' is to furnish an additional 
argument against suicide. Better live a crossing-sweeper 
than die and be made to talk twaddle by a ' medium ' 
hired at a guinea a seance. 

" I am, Sir, &c., 

" T. H. Huxley. 

"29th January, 1869." 

Confessedly Professor Huxley only tried one experi- 
ment. I cannot help thinking if he had not approached 
the subject with a certain amount of prejudice he would 
have been content to "Try again." The side-hit at 
curates of- course I appreciate ! 

" Dear Sir, — I shall not be able to attend the investi- 
gation of ' spiritualism ; ' and in reference to your ques- 
tion about suggestions would only say that the one hint 
needful is that all present should distinguish between 
facts and inferences from facts. When any man says 
that phenomena are produced by 7to known physical 
laws, he declares that he knows the laws by which they 
are produced. 

" Yours, &c., 

" G. H. Lewes 

" Tuesday, 2d February, 1869." 



3i8 MYSTIC LONDON. 

I am not, as I have said, a scientific man, nor do I 
advance the slightest pretensions to genius ; therefore I 
have no doubt it is some mental defect on my part 
which prevents my seeing the force of Mr. G. H. Lewes's 
concluding sentence. I have worked at it for years and 
am compelled to say I cannot understand it. 

I sat, however, through the two years' examination 
which the Society gave to the subject ; and it is not 
anticipating the conclusion of this chapter to say I was 
fully able to concur in the report they subsequently 
issued, the gist of which is continued in the final 
paragraph : 

" In presenting their report, your committee taking 
into consideration the high character and great intelli- 
gence of many of the witnesses to the more extraordinary 
facts, the extent to which their testimony is supported 
by the reports of the sub-committees, and absence of 
any proof of imposture or delusion as regards a large 
portion of the phenomena ; and further, having regard 
to the exceptional character of the phenomena, the 
large number of persons in every grade of society 
and over the whole civilized world who are more 
or less influenced by a belief in their supernatural 
origin, and to the fact that no philosophical explana- 
tion of them has yet been arrived at, deem it incum- 
bent upon them to state their conviction that the 
subject is worthy of more serious attention and careful 
investigation than it has hitherto received." 

With those cautiously guarded words I venture to 
think that any one who even reads the body of evidence 
contained in the Dialectical Society's report will be able 
to coincide. 

To return to my more personal narrative. 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 



319 



As far as I can trace any order in this somewhat erra- 
tic subject, I think I may venture to say that the mani- 
festations of the last few years have assumed a more 
material form than before. It sounds a little Hibernian 
to say so, I know ; but I still retain the expression. 
Supposing, for the moment, that the effects were pro- 
duced by spirits, the control of the medium for the 
production of trance, spirit-voice, automatic writing, or 
even communications through raps and tilts of the table 
was much more intellectual — less physical than those of 
which I now have to speak — namely, the production of 
the materialized Spirit Faces and Spirit Forms. 

Two phrases of manifestation, I may mention in pass- 
ing, I have not seen — namely, the elongation of the 
body, and the fire test — ^both, as far as I know, peculiar 
to Mr. Home : nor again have I had personal experience 
of Mrs. Guppy's aerial transit, or Dr. Monk's nocturnal 
flight from Bristol to Swindon. Nothing of the kind has 
ever come at all within the sphere of my observation : 
therefore I forbear to speak about it. 

I shall never forget the delight with which I received 
a letter from a gentleman connected with the literature 
of spiritualism, informing me that materialized Spirit 
Faces had at last been produced in full light, and invit- 
ing me to come and see. I was wearied of dark seances^ 
of fruit and flowers brought to order. John King's talk 
wearied me \ and Katie's whispers had become fatally 
familiar : so I went in eagerly for the new sensation, and 
communicated my results to the world in the two papers 
called Spirit Faces and Spirit Forms, the former pub- 
lished in Unorthodox London, the latter in Chapter 43 
of the present volume. This class of manifestation has 
since become very common. I cannot say I ever con- 



320 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



sidered it very satisfactory. I have never discovered 
any trickery — and I assure my readers I have kept my 
eyes and ears very wide open — but there are in such 
manifestations facilities for charlatanism which it is not 
pleasant to contemplate. This, let me continually re- 
peat, is a purely personal narrative, and I have never 
seen any Spirit Face or Form that I could hi the faintest 
way recognize. Others, I know, claim to have done so ; 
but I speak strictly of what has occurred to myself. 
The same has been the case with Spirit Photographs 
I have sat, after selecting my own plate and watching 
every stage in the process ; and certainly over my form 
there has been a shadowy female figure apparently in 
the act of benediction ; * but I cannot trace resemblance 
to any one I ever saw in the flesh. Perhaps I have been 
unfortunate in this respect. 

Very similar to Miss Cook's mediumship was that of 
Miss Showers ; a young lady whom I have met frequent- 
ly at the house of a lady at the West-end of London, 
both the medium and her hostess being quite above sus- 
picion. In this case, besides the face and full form we 
have singing in a clear baritone voice presumably by a 
spirit called Peter — who gives himself out as having been 
in earth-life, I believe, a not very estimable specimen of 
a market-gardner. I am exceedingly puzzled how to 
account for these things. I dare not suspect the 
medium ; but even granting the truth for the manifesta- 
tions, they seemed to me to be of a low class which one 
would only come into contact with under protest and for 
the sake of evidence. 

Mr. Crookes used to explain, and Serjeant Cox still 
explains these manifestations as being the products of a 
♦ Alluded to ante p. 284. 



FEOS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 321 

so-called Psychic Force — a term which I below define. 
Although I am as little inclined to hero-worshijD, and 
care as little for large names as any man living, yet it 
is quite impossible not to attach importance to the testi- 
mony of these gentlemen ; one so eminent in the scien- 
tific world, and privileged to write himself F.R.S., the 
other trained to weigh evidence and decide between 
balanced probabilities. But it would seem that while 
Psychic Force might cover the ground of my earlier ex- 
periences, it singularly fails to account for the materi- 
alizations, and obliges us to relegate them to the category 
of fraud, unless we except them as being what they 
profess to be. This I believe Serjeant Cox ruthlessly 
does. He claims as we have seen to have " caught " 
Miss Showers, and was not, I believe, convinced by Miss 
Cook. Mr. Crookes was : and, when we remember that 
Mr. Wallace, the eminent naturalist, and Mr. Crom- 
well Varley, the electrician, both accept the sjDiritual 
theory, it really looks as though the scientific mind was 
more open to receive — perhaps driven to receive — this 
which I frankly concede to be the only adequate cause 
for the effects, while the legal mind still remains hair- 
splitting upon conflicting evidence. Whereabouts the 
theological mind is I do not quite know — perhaps still 
dangling between the opposite poles of Faith and Rea- 
son, and dubiously debating with me " Am I a Spiritual- 
ist or not 1 " 

In a recent pamphlet reprinted from the Quarterly 
Journal of Science, Mr. Crookes thus compendiously 
sums up the various theories which have been invented 
to account for spiritualistic phenomena, and in so doing, 
incidently defines his now discarded theory of Psychic 
Force which owns Mr. Serjeant Cox for its patron : — 



322 MYSTIC LONDON. 

First Theory, — The phenomena are all the results of 
tricks, clever mechanical arrangements, or legerdemain ; 
the mediums are impostors, and the rest of the company 
fools. 

It is obvious that this theory can only account for a 
very small portion of the facts observed. I am willing 
to admit that some so-called mediums of whom the pub- 
lic have heard much are arrant impostors who have taken 
advantage of the public demand for spiritualistic excite- 
ment to. fill their purses with easily earned guineas ; 
whilst others who have no pecuniary motive for impos- 
ture are tempted to cheat, it would seem, solely by a 
desire for notoriety. 

Second Theory. — The persons at a seance are the vic- 
tims of a sort of mania or delusion, and imagine phe- 
nomena to occur which have no real objective existence. 

Third Theory. — -The whole is the result of conscious 
or unccnscious cerebral action. 

These two theories are evidently incapable of embrac- 
ing more than a small portion of the phenomena, and 
they are improbable explanations for even those. They 
may be dismissed very briefly, 

I now approach the " spiritual " theories. It must be 
remembered that the word " spirits" is used in a very 
vague sense by the generality of people. 

Fourth Theory. — The result of the spirit of the medium, 
perhaps in association with the spirits of some or all of 
the people present. 

Fifth Theory. — ^The actions of evil spirits or devils, 
personifying who or what they please, in order to un- 
dermine Christianity and ruin men's souls. 

Sixth Theory, — The action of a separate order of be- 
ings, living on this earth, but invisible and immaterial 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 323 

to US. Able, however, occasionally to manifest their 
presence ; known in almost all countries and ages as 
demons not necessarily bad, gnomes, fairies, kobolds, 
elves, goblins, Puck, &c. 

Seventh Theory. — The actions of departed human be- 
ings — the spiritual theory /^r excellence. 

Eight Theory, — {The Psychic Force Theory?) — This is a 
necessary adjunct to the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th theories, 
rather than a theory by itself. 

According to this theory the " medium," or the circle 
of people associated together as a whole, is supposed to 
possess a force, power, influence, virtue or gift, by means 
of which intelligent beings are enabled to produce the 
phenomena observed. What these intelligent beings 
are is a subject for other theories. 

It is obvious that a " medium" possesses a so?nething 
which is not possessed by an ordinary being. Give 
this something a name. Call it " ■« " if you like. Mr. 
Serjeant Cox calls it Psychic Force. There has been 
so much misunderstanding on this subject that I think 
it best to give the following explanation in Mr. Serjeant 
Cox's own words '.^^— 

" The Theory of Psychic Force is in itself merely the 
recognition of the now almost undisputed fact that under 
certain conditions, as yet but imperfectly ascertained, 
and without a limited, but as yet undefined, distance 
from the bodies of certain persons having a special nerve 
organization, a Force operates by which, without mus- 
cular contact or connection, action at a distance is caus- 
ed, and visible motions and audible sounds are produced 
in solid substances. As th^ presence of such an organ- 
ization is necessary to the phenomenon, it is reasonably 
concluded that the Force does, in some manner as yet 



324 MYSTIC LONDON. 

unknown, proceed from that organization. As the organ- 
ism is itself moved and directed within its structure by 
a Force which either is, or is controlled by, the Soul, 
Spirit, or Mind (call it what we may) which constitutes 
the individual being we term ' the Man,' it is an equally 
reasonable conclusion that the Force which causes the 
motions beyond the limits of the body is the same Force 
that produces motion within the limits of the body. 
And, inasmuch as the external force is seen to be often 
directed by Intelligence, it is an equally reasonable 
conclusion that the directing Intelligence of the external 
force is the same Intelligence that directs the Force in- 
ternally. This is the force to which the name oiFsychic 
Force has been given by me as properly designating a 
force which I thus contend to be traced back to the 
Soul or Mind of the Man as its source. But I, and all 
who adopt this theory of Psychic Force, as being the 
agent through which the phenomena are produced, do 
not thereby intend to assert that this Psychic Force may 
not be sometimes seized and directed by some other 
Intelligence than the Mind of the Psychic. The most 
ardent spiritualists practically admit the existence of 
Psychic Force under the very inappropriate name of 
Magnetism (to which it has no affinity whatever), for 
they assert that the Spirits of the Dead can only do the 
acts attributed to them by using the Magnetism (that is, 
the Psychic Force) of the Medium. The difference be- 
tween the advocates of Psychic Force and the spiritual- 
ists consists in this — that we contend that there is as 
yet insufficient proof of any other directing agent than 
the Intelligence of the Medium, and no proof whatever 
of the agency of Spirits of the Dead \ while the spiritual- 
ists hold it as a faith, not demanding further proof, that 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 325 

Spirits of the Dead are the sole agents in the production 
of all the phenomena. Thus the controversy resolves 
itself into a pure question oifact, only to be determined 
by a laborious and long continued series of experiments 
and an extensive collection of psychological facts, which 
should be the first duty of the Psychological Society, 
the formation of which is now in progress." 

It has frequently struck me, especially in connection 
with certain investigations that I have been making dur- 
ing the last few years, that Spiritualism is going through 
much the same phases as Positivism. It seemed at first 
impossible that the Positive Philosophy of Auguste 
Comte could culminate in a highly ornate Religion of 
Humanity, with its full ritual, its ninefold sacramental 
system. It is even curious to notice that it was the 
death of Clotilde which brought about the change, by 
revealing to him the gap which Philosophy always does 
leave between the present and the future. So too 
Spiritualism is beginning to " organize " and exhibits 
some symptoms of formulating a Creed and Articles of 
Belief. -The British National Association of Spiritual- 
ists, which has honored me by placing my name on 
its Council, thus states its principles, under the mot- 
toes : — 

" He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is 
folly and shame unto him." — Proverbs xviii. 13. 

" In Scripture we are perpetually reminded that the 
Laws of the Spiritual World are, in the highest sense, 
Laws of Nature." — Argyll. 

" He who asserts that outside of the domain of pure 
Mathematics, anything is impossible, lacks a knowledge 
of the first principles of Logic." — Arago. 



326 MYSTIC LONDON, 

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES AND PURPOSES. 

"Spiritualism implies the recogniticm of an inner 
nature in man. It deals with facts concerning that 
inner nature, the existence of which has been the subject 
of speculation, dispute, and even of denial, amongst 
philosophers in all ages ; and in particular, with certain 
manifestations of that inner nature which have been ob- 
served in persons of peculiar organizations, now called 
Mediums or Sensitives, and in ancient times Prophets, 
Priests and Seers. 

" Spiritualism claims to have established on a firm 
scientific basis the immortahty of man, the permanence 
of his individuality, and the Open Communion, under suit- 
able conditions, of the living with the so-called dead, 
and affords grounds for the belief in progressive spiri- 
tual states in new spheres of existence. 

" Spiritualism furnishes the key to the better under- 
standing of all religions, ancient and modern. It 
explains the philosophy of Inspiration, and supersedes 
the popular notions of the miraculous by the revelation 
of hitherto unrecognized laws. 

" Spiritualism tends to abrogate exaggerated class 
distinctions; to reunite those who are now too often 
divided by seemingly conflicting material interests ; to 
encourage the co-operation of men and women in 
many new spheres ; and to uphold the freedom and 
rights of the individual, while maintaining as paramount 
the sanctity of family life. 

" Finally, the general influence of Spiritualism on the 
individual is to inspire him with self-respect, with a love of 
justice and truth, with a reverence for Divine law, and with 
a sense of harmony between man, the universe, and God. 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 327 

" The British National Association of SpirituaHsts is 
formed to unite Spiritualists of every variety of opinion, 
for their mutal aid and benefit : to promote the study of 
Pneumatology and Psychology ; to aid students and in- 
quirers in their researches, by placing at their disposal 
the means of systematic investigation into the now 
recognized facts and phenomena, called Spiritual or 
Psychic ; to make known the positive results arrived at 
by careful scientific research ; and to direct attention to 
the beneficial influence which those results are cal- 
culated to exercise upon social relationships and individ- 
ual conduct. It is intended to include spiritualists of 
every class, whether members of Local and Provincial 
Societies or not, and all inquiries into psychological and 
kindred phenomena. 

" The Association, whilst cordially sympathizing with 
the teachings of Jesus Christ, will hold itself entirely aloof 
from all dogmatism or finalities, whether religious or phi- 
losophical, and will content itself with the establishment 
and elucidation of well-attested facts, as the only basis 
on which any true religion or philosophy can be built up." 

This last clause has, I believe, been modified to suit 
certain members of my profession who were a little 
staggered by its apparent patronizing of Christianity. 
For myself (but then, I am unorthodox) I care little for 
these written or printed symbola. Having strained my 
conscience to join the Dialecticians, I allow my name, 
without compunction, to stand on the Council of the 
Association, — and shall be really glad if it does them any 
good. The fact is, I care little for formal creeds, but 
much for the fruit of those creeds. I stand by that good 
old principle — " By their fruits ye shall know them ; " 
and that reminds me that to my shreds and patches of 



328 MYSTIC LONDON. 

*' experience " I am to append some pros and cons of 
this matter. They have cropped up incidentally as we 
have gone on : but I could with advantage collect them 
if my limits admitted of sermonizing. 

As to the fruits of Spiritualism, I can only say that I 
have never witnessed any of these anti-Christianizing 
effects which some persons say arise from a belief in Spirit- 
ualism. They simply have not come within the sphere of 
my observation, nor do I see any tendency towards 
them in the tenets of Spiritualism — rather the reverse. 

Then again, to pass from practice to faith, Spiritualism 
professes to be the reverse of exclusive. In addressing 
the Conference of 1874, and defending my position as a 
clerical inquirer, I was able to say : — " On the broad 
question of theology I can conceive no single subject 
which a clergyman is more bound to examine than that 
which purports to be a new revelation, or, at all events, 
a large extension of the old ; and which, if its claims be 
substantiated, will quite modify our notions as to what 
we now call faith. It proposes, in fact, to supply in mat- 
ters we have been accustomed to take on trust, some- 
thing so like demonstration, that I feel not only at liberty, 
but actually bound, whether I like it or not, to look into 
the thing. 

***#* * **# 
Whether your creed is right or wrong is not for me to 
tell you ; but it is most important for me that I should 
assure myself. And while I recognize that my own 
duty clearly is to examine the principles you profess, I 
find this to be eminently their characteristic, that they 
readily assimilate with those of my own church. I see 
nothing revolutionary in them. You have no prop- 
aganda. You do not call upon me, as far as I under- 



PROS AND CO/VS OF SPIRITUALISM. 329 

Stand, to come out of the body I belong to and join 
yours, as so many other bodies do ; but you ask me 
simply to take your doctrines into my own creed, and 
vitalize it by their means. That has always attracted 
me powerfully towards you. You are the broadest 
Churchmen I find anywhere." 

I am not writing thus in any sense as the apologist of 
Spiritualism. I am not offering anything like an 
Apologia pro vita med in making the inquiries I have 
done, am doing, and hope to do. I have elected to 
take, and I elect to maintain, a neutral position in this 
matter. All I have done is to select from the Pros and 
Cons that present themselves to my mind. If the Pros 
seem to outweigh the Cons — or via versa — be it so. T 
cannot help it. I have scarcely decided for myself yet, 
and I am a veteran investigator. Others may be more 
speedy in arriving at a conclusion. 

Among the more obvious " Cons " are the oft-quoted 
facts that some people have lost their heads and wasted 
a good deal of their time on Spiritualism. But people 
lose their heads by reading classics or mathematics, or 
overdoing any one subject however excellent — even 
falling in love : and the ingenuity displayed in wasting 
time is so manifold that this is an objection that Can 
scarcely be urged specially against Spiritualism, though 
I own Dark Seances do cut terribly into time. 

Then again, one is apt to be taken in by mediums or 
even by spirits. Yes ; but this only imposes the or- 
dinary obligation of keeping one's eyes open. I know 
spiritualists who believe in every medium qua medium, 
and others who accept as unwritten gospel the idiotic 
utterances of a departed buccaneer or defunct clown : 



330 



MYSTIC LONDON. 



but these people are so purely exceptional as simply to 
prove a rule. Do not accept as final in so-called spir- 
itual what you would not accept in avowedly mundane 
matters. Keep your eyes open and your head cool, and 
you will not go far wrong. These are the simple rules 
that I have elaborated during my protracted study of 
the subject. 

" We do not believe, we know," was, as I said, the 
proud boast a spiritualist once made to me. And if 
the facts — any of the facts — of Spiritualism stand as 
facts, there is no doubt that it would form the strongest 
possible counterpoise to the materialism of our age. It 
presses the method of materiahsm into its service, and 
meets the doubter on his own ground of demonstration 
— a low ground, perhaps, but a tremendously decisive 
one, the very one, perhaps, on which the Battle of 
Faith and Reason will have to be fought out. 

If — let us not forget that pregnant monosyllable — if 
the assumptions of Spiritualism be true, and that we can 
only ascertain by personal investigation, I believe the 
circumstance would be efficacious in bringing back much 
of the old meaning of the word tzigti^ which was some- 
thing more than the slipshod Faith standing as its 
modern equivalent. It would make it really the sub 
stance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
seen. 

Even if the dangers of Spiritualism were much greater 
than they are — aye, as great as the diabolical people 
themselves make out— I should still think (in the cau- 
tious words of the Dialecticians) Spiritualism was worth 
looking into, if only on the bare chance, however remote, 
of lighting on some such Philosophy as that so beauti- 



PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM. 331 

fully sketched by Mr. S. C. Hall in some of the con- 
cluding stanzas of his poem " Philosophy," with which I 
may fitly conclude — 

And those we call " the dead " (who are not dead — 
Death was their herald to Celestial Life) — 

May soothe the aching heart and weary head 
In pain, in toil, in sorrow, and in strife. 

That is a part of every natural creed — 

Instinctive teaching of another state : 
When manacles of earth are loosed and freed — 

Which Science vainly strives to dissipate. 

In tortuous paths, with prompters blind, we trust 
One Guide — to lead us forth and set us free 1 

Give us, Lord God I all merciful and just ! 
The Faith that is but Confidence in Thee ! 



THE ENIX 



HEALTH AND VIGOR 

FOR THE BRAIN AND NERVES. 




CROSBY'S VITALIZED PHOS-PHITES. 

Tkis is a standard preparation with all physicians who treat 
nervQiis and mental disorders. 

Grosby^s Vitalized FJws-phites should te taken as a Special 
Brain Food. 

To BUILD UP worn-out nerves, to banish sleeplessness, neu- 
ralgia and sick headache. — Dr. Gwynn. 

To PROMOTE good digestion. — I)r. Filmore. 

To '' STAMP OUT " consumption. — Dr. Churchill. 
« To *' coMPLETLY cure night sweats." — John B. Quigley. 

To MAINTAIN the capabilities of the brain and nerves to per- 
form all functions even at the highest tension, — E. L. Kellogg. 

To RESTORE the energy lost by nervousness, debility, over- 
exertion or enervated vital powers. — D^\ W. S. Wells, 

To REPAIR the nerves that have been enfeebled by worry, de- 
pressjpp., anxiety or deep gri<dt.—Miss Mary RanMn. 

To STRENGTHEN the intellect so that study and deep mental 
application may be a pleasure and not a trial. — B. M. Couch. 

To DEVELOP good teeth, glossy hair, clear skin, handsome nails 
in the young, so that they may be an inheritance in later years. — 
Editor School Journal. 

To ENLARGE the Capabilities for enjoyment. — National Journal 
of Education. 

To "make life a pleasm'e,'* "not a daily suffering." "I 
really urge you to put it to the test." — Miss Emily. Faithfull, 

To AMPLIFY bodily and mental power to the present genera- 
tion and "prove the survival of the fittest" to the next. — Bismarck. 

There is no other Vital Phos-phite, none that is extracted 
from living animal and vegetable tissues. — Dr. Gaspei\ 

To restore lost powers and abilities.—i^n ButU ^ 

For sale by druggists or mail, $1. 
P. CROSBY CO., No. 56 \f est Twenty-fifth St., New York. 



THE CELEBRATED 



I 1— T==U=I— I T=j1 




d=T=T=irr=T= E 



SOBMER 



1-==*^F*=T 



Grand, Square and Uprigl 




PIANOFORTES. 

The demands now made by an educated musical public are bo exacting that very I 
Pianoforte Manufacturers can produce Instruments that will stand the test which ra 
requires. SO HMER & CO., as Manufacturers, rank amongst these chosen few, vvho 
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separably joined to expect the one withou ae o^her. 

Every Piano ought to be judged as to the quality of its tone. Its touch, and its W( 
man--hip;if any one of these is wanting in excellence, however good the others may 
the instrument will b ) imperfect. It is the combination of these qualities in the higl 
degree that conetitutes the perfect Piano, and it i^ this combination that has given 
" SOHMER " its honorable position with the trade and the public. 

Received First Prize Centennial Exhibition, Philadelplils, 1870 
Received First Prize at Exhibition, Montreal, Canada, ISiil & ISf 

SOHMER & CO., Manufacturers, 

149-155 E. 14th St., New Yai 






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